The Carpet from Bagdad

"Make way, O my mother!" bawled a donkey-boy to the old crone peddling matches.

"Backsheesh! Backsheesh!" in the eight tones of the human voice. From the beggar, his brother, his uncle, his grandfather, his children and his children's children. "Backsheesh, backsheesh!"

"To the right!" was shrilled into Ryanne's ear; and he dodged. A troop of donkeys passed, laden with tourists, unhappy, fretful, self-conscious. A water-carrier brushed against him, and he whiffed the fresh dampness of the bulging goat-skin. A woman, the long, black head-veil streaming out behind in the clutch of the monkey-like hand of a toddling child, carried a terra-cotta water-jar upon her head. The grace with which she moved, the abruptness of the color-changes, caught Ryanne's roving eye and filled it with pleasure.

Dust rose and subsided, eddied and settled; beggars blind and one-eyed squatted in it, children tossed it in play, and beasts of burden shuffled through it.

The roar in front of the shops, the pressing and crowding of customers, the high cries of the merchants; the gurgle of the water-pipes, the pleasant fumes of coffee, the hardy loafers lolling before the khans or caravansaries; a veiled face at a lattice-window; the violet shadows in a doorway; the sunshine upon the soaring mosques; a true believer, rocking and mumbling over his tattered Koran; gold and silver and jewels; amber and copper and brass; embroideries and rugs and carpets; and the pest of fleas, the plague of flies, the insidious smells.

Rarely one saw the true son of the desert, the Bedouin. He disdained streets and walls, and only necessity brought him here among the polyglot and the polygon.

Ryanne found himself inspecting "the largest emerald in the world, worth twelve thousand pounds," which looked more like a fine hexagonal of onyx than a gem. It was one of the curiosities of the bazaars, however, and tourists were generally round it in force. To his experienced eye it was no more than a fine specimen of emerald quartz, worth what any fool of a collector was willing to pay for it. From this bazaar he passed on into the next, and there he saw Fortune.

And as Mahomed, always close at hand, saw the hard lines in Ryanne's face soften, the cynical smile become tender, he believed he saw his way to strike.

CHAPTER IX

THE BITTER FRUIT

Fortune had a hearty contempt for persons who ate their breakfast in bed. For her the glory of the day was the fresh fairness of the morning, when every one's step was buoyant, and all life stirred energetically. There was cheer and hope everywhere; men faced their labors with clear eye and feared nothing; women sang at their work. It was only at the close of day that despair and defeat stalked the highways. So she was up with the sun, whether in her own garden or in these odd and mystical cities. Thus she saw the native as he was, not as he later in the day pretended to be, for the benefit of the Feringhi about to be stretched upon the sacrificial stone. She saw, with gladness, the honey-bee thirling the rose, the plowman's share baring the soil: the morning, the morning, the two or three hours that were all, all her own. Her mother was always irritable and petulant in the morning, and her uncle never developed the gift of speech till after luncheon.

She had the same love of prowling that lured Ryanne from the beaten paths. She was not inquisitive but curious, and that ready disarming smile of hers opened many a portal.

She was balancing upon her gloved palm, thoughtfully, a Soudanese head-trinket, a pendant of twisted gold-wires, flawed emeralds and second pearls, really exquisite and not generally to be found outside the expensive shops in the European quarters, and there infrequently. The merchant wanted twenty pounds for it. Fortune shook her head, regretfully. It was far beyond her means. She sighed. Only once in a great while she saw something for which her whole heart cried out. This pendant was one of these.

"I will give you five pounds for it. That is all I have with me."

"Salaam, madame," said the jeweler, reaching for the pendant.

"If you will send it to the Hotel Semiramis this afternoon…" But she faltered at the sight of the merchant's incredulous smile.

"I'll give you ten for it; not a piastre more. I can get one like it in the Shâriâ Kâmel for that amount."

Both Fortune and the merchant turned.

"You, Horace?"

"Yes, my child. And what are you doing here alone, without a dragoman?"

"Oh, I have been through here alone many times. I'm not afraid. Isn't it beautiful? He wants twenty pounds for it, and I can not afford that."

She had not seen him in many weeks, yet she accepted his sudden appearance without question or surprise. She was used to his turning up at unexpected moments. Of course, she had known that he was in Cairo: where her mother and uncle were this secretive man was generally within calling. There had been a time when she had eagerly plied him with questions, but he had always erected barriers of evasion, and finally she ceased her importunities, for she concluded that her questions were such. No matter to whom she turned, there was no one to answer her questions, questions born of doubt and fear.

"Ten pounds," repeated Ryanne, a hand in his pocket.

The merchant laughed. Here were a young man and his sweetheart. His experience had taught him, and not unwisely, that love is an easy victim, too proud to haggle, too generous to bargain sharply. "Twenty," he reiterated.

"Salaam!" said Ryanne. "Good day!" He drew the somewhat resisting hand of Fortune under his arm and made for the door. "Sh!" he whispered. "Leave it to me." They gained the street.

The merchant was dazed. He had misjudged what he now recognized as an old hand. The two were turning up another street when he ran out, shouting to them and waving the pendant. Ryanne laughed.

"Ten pounds. I am a poor man, effendi, and I need the money. Ten pounds. I am giving it away." The merchant's eyes filled with tears, a trick left to him from out the ruins of his youth, that ready service to forestall the merited rod.

Ryanne counted out ten sovereigns and put the pendant in Fortune's hand. And the pleasure in his heart was such as he had not known in many days. The merchant wisely hurried back to his shop.

"But…" she began protestingly.

"Tut, tut! I have known you since you wore short dresses and tam-o'-shanters."

"I really can not accept it as a gift. Let me borrow the ten pounds."

"And why can't you accept this little gift from me?"

She had no ready answer. She gazed steadily at the dull pearls and the flaky emeralds. She could not ask him where he had got those sovereigns. She could not possibly be so cruel. She could not dissemble in words like her mother. That gold she knew to be a part of a dishonest bargain whose forestep had been a theft – more, a sacrilege. Her honesty was like pure gold, unalloyed, unmixed with sophistic subterfuges. That the young man who had purchased the rug might be mildly peccable had not yet occurred to her.

"Why not, Fortune?" Ryanne was very earnest, and there was a pinch at his heart.

"Because…"

"Don't you like me, just a little?"

"Why, I do like you, Horace. But I do not like any man well enough to accept expensive gifts from him. I do not wish to hurt you, but it is impossible. The only concession I'll make is to borrow the money."

"Well, then, let it go at that." He was too wise to press her.

"And can you afford to throw away ten pounds?" with assumed lightness. "My one permanent impression of you is the young man who was always forced to borrow car-fare whenever he returned from Monte Carlo."

"A fool and his money. But I'm a rich man now," he volunteered. And briefly he sketched the exploit of the Yhiordes rug.

"It was very brave of you. But has it ever occurred to you that it wasn't honest?"

"Honest?" frankly astonished that she should question the ethics. "Oh, I say, Fortune; you don't call it dishonest to get the best of a pagan! Aren't they always getting the best of us?"

"If you had bargained with him and beaten him down, it would have been different. But, Horace, you stole it; you admit that you did."

"I took my life in my hands. I think that evened up things."

"No. And you sold it to Mr. Jones?"

"Yes, and Mr. Jones was only too glad to buy it. I told him the facts. He wasn't particularly eager to bring up the ethics of the case. Why, child, what the deuce is a Turk? I shouldn't cry out if some one stole my Bible."

"Good gracious! do you carry one?"

"Well, there's always one on the room-stand in the hotels I patronize."

"I suppose it all depends upon how we look at things."

"That's it. A different pair of spectacles for every pair of eyes."

If only he weren't in love with her! thought the girl. He would then be an amusing comrade. But whenever he met her he quietly pressed his suit. He had never spoken openly of love, for which she was grateful, but his attentions, his little kindnesses, his unobtrusive protection when those other men were at the villa, made the reading between the lines no difficult matter.

"What shall you do if this Mahomed you speak of comes?"

"Turn him loose upon our friend Jones," with a laugh.

"And what will he do to him?"

"Carry him off to Bagdad and chop off his head," Ryanne jested.

"Tell me, is there any possibility of Mr. Jones coming to harm?"

"Can't say." Her concern for Percival annoyed him.

"Is it fair, when he paid you generously?"

He did not look into the grave eyes. They were the only pair that ever disconcerted him. "My dear Fortune, it's a question which is the more valuable to me, my skin or Percival's."

"It isn't fair."

"From my point of view it's fair enough. I warned him; I told him the necessary facts, the eventual dangers. He accepted them all with the Yhiordes. I see nothing unfair in the deal, since I risked my own life in the first place."

"And why must you do these desperate things?"

"Oh, I love excitement. My one idea in life is to avoid the humdrum."

"Is it necessary to risk your life for these excitements? Is your life nothing more to you than something to experiment with?"

"Truth, sometimes I don't know, Fortune. Sometimes I don't care. When one has gambled for big stakes, it is hard to play again for penny points."

"A strong, healthy man like you ought not to court death."

"I do not seek it. My only temptation is to see how near I can get to the Man in the Shroud, as some poet calls it, without being touched. I'll make you my confessor. You see, it is like this. A number of wearied men recently formed a company whereby monotony became an obsolete word in our vocabulary. You must not think I'm jesting; I'm serious enough. This company ferrets out adventures and romances and sells them to men of spirit. I became a member, and the trip to Bagdad is the result. One never has to share with the company. The rewards are all yours. All one has to do is to pay a lump sum down for the adventure furnished. You work out the end yourself, unhindered and unassisted."

"Are you really serious?"

"Never more so. Now, Percival Algernon has always been wanting an adventure, but the practical side of him has made him hold aloof. I told him about this concern, and he refuses to believe in it. So I am going to undertake to prove it to him. This is confidential. You will say nothing, I know."

"He will come to no harm physically?"

"Lord, no! It will be mild and innocuous. Of course, if any one told him that an adventure was toward for his especial benefit, it would spoil all. I can rely upon your silence?"

She was silent. He witnessed her indecision with distrust. Perhaps he had said too much.

"Won't you promise? Haven't I always been kind to you, Fortune, times when you most needed kindness?"

"I promise to say nothing. But if any harm comes to that young man, either in jest or in earnest, I will never speak to you again."

"I see that, after getting Percival Algernon into an adventure, I've got to cicerone him safely out of it. Well, I accept the responsibility." Some days later he was going to recall this assurance.

"Sometimes I wonder…" pensively.

"Wonder about what?"

"What manner of man you are."

"I should have been a great deal better man had I met you ten years ago."

"What? When I was eleven?" with a levity intended to steer him away from this channel.

"You know what I mean," he answered, moody and dejected.

She opened her purse and dropped the pendant into it, but did not speak.

"Ten years ago," abstractedly. "What a lot of things may happen in ten years! Deaths, births, marriages," he went on; "the snuffing out of kingdoms and republics; wars, panics, famine; honor to some and dishonor to others. It kind of makes a fellow grind his teeth, little girl; it kind of makes him shut his fists and long to run amuck."

"Why should a strong, intelligent man, such as you are, think like that? You are resourceful and unafraid. Why should you talk like that? You are young, too. Why?"

He stopped and looked full into her eyes. "Do you really wish to know?"

"Had I better?" with a wisdom beyond her years.

"No, you had better not. I'm not a good man, Fortune, as criterions go. I've slipped here and there; I've gambled and drunk and squandered my time. Why, in my youth I was as model a boy as ever was Percival. Where the divarication took place I can't say. There's always two forks in the road, Fortune, and many of us take the wrong one. It's easier going. Fine excuse; eh? Some persons would call me a scoundrel, a black-leg; in some ways, yes. But in the days to come I want you always to remember the two untarnished spots upon my shield of honor: I have never cheated a man at cards nor run away with his wife. The devil must give me these merits, however painful it may be to him. Ten years ago, only a decade; good Lord! it's like a hundred years ago, sometimes."

Fortune breathed with difficulty. Never before had he taken her into his confidence to such extent. She essayed to speak; the old terror seemed fairly to smother her. It was not what he had told her, but what she wished to but dared not ask. She was like Bluebeard's wife, only she had not the moral courage to open the door of the grisly closet… Her mother, her uncle; what of them, ah, what of them? The crooked street vanished; the roar dwindled away; she was alone, all, all alone.

"I suppose I ought not to have told you," he said troubled at the misery he saw gathered in her eyes and vaguely conscious of what had written it there. "Your mother and uncle have been very kind to me. They know less of me than you do. I have been to them a kind of errand-boy; a happy-go-lucky fellow, who cheered them when they had the doldrums." With forced cheerfulness he again took her hand and snuggled it under his arm, giving it a friendly, reassuring pat. "I'll not speak to you of love, child, but a hair of your head is more precious to me than all Midas' gold. Whenever I've thought of you, I've tried to be good. Honestly."

"And can't you go back to the beginning and start anew?" tremulously.

"Can any one go back? The moving finger writes. An hour is a terrible thing when you look to see what can happen in it. But, come; sermons! I'd far rather see you smile. Won't you?"

She tried to, but to him it was sadder than her tears would have been.

For an hour they walked through the dim and musty streets. He exerted himself to amuse her and fairly succeeded. But never did the unaccountable fear, that presage of misfortune, sleep in her heart. And at last, when he took her to her carriage and bade her good-by till dinner, a half-formed idea began to grow in her brain: to save Mr. Jones without betraying Ryanne.

The latter's carriage was at the other end of the bazaars; so he strode sullenly through the press, rudely elbowing those who got in his way. An occasional curse was flung after him; but his height, his breadth of shoulder, his lowering face, precluded anything more active. The Moslems had a deal of faith in the efficacy of curses; so the jostled ones rested upon the promise of these, satisfied that directly, or in the near future, Allah would blast the unbelieving dog in his tracks.

What cleverness the mother and scallawag of an uncle had shown to have kept the child in ignorance all these years! That she saw darkly, as through a fog, he was perfectly sure. Sooner or later the storm would burst upon her innocent head, and then God alone knew what would become of her. Oh, damn the selfish, sordid world! At that instant a great longing rolled over him to cut loose from all these evil webs, to begin anew somewhere, even if that somewhere were but a wilderness, a clearing in a forest.

This moment flashed and was gone. Next, he reviewed with chagrin and irritation the folly of his ultimatum of the preceding night. He had had not the slightest semblance of a plan in his head. Sifted down, he saw only his savage and senseless humor and the desire to stir up discord. Gioconda was right. Fortune was above them all, in feeling, in instinct, in loyalty. What right had he, roisterer by night that he was, predaceous outlaw, what right had he to look upon Fortune as his own? Harm her! He would have lopped off his right hand first.

Well, he had but little time, and Percival Algernon called for prompt action. The young fool was smitten with Fortune. Any one could see that. As he shouldered his pathway to the carriage, his eyes seeing but not visualizing objects, three brown men glided in between him and the carriage-step.

CHAPTER X

MAHOMED LAUGHS

The drawing back of Ryanne's powerful arm was produced by the stimulus of self-preservation; but almost instantly thought dominated impulse, and all indications of belligerency disappeared. The arm sank, relaxed. It was not possible nor politic that Mahomed-El-Gebel meant to take reprisal in this congested quarter. It would have gained him no advantage whatever. And Ryanne's perception of the exact situation enabled him to smile with the cool effrontery of a man inured to sudden dangers.

"Well, well! So you have found your way to Cairo, Mahomed?"

"Yes, effendi," returned Mahomed, with a smile that answered Ryanne's in thought and expression, the only perceivable difference being in the accentuated whiteness of his fine teeth. "Yes, I have found you."

"And you have been looking for me?"

"Surely."

Ryanne, with an airy gesture, signified that he wished to enter his carriage. Mahomed, with a movement equally light, implied his determination to stand his ground.

"In a moment, effendi," he said smoothly.

Mahomed spoke English more or less fluently. His career of forty-odd years had been most colorful. Once a young sheik of the desert, of ample following, a series of tribal wars left him unattached, a wanderer without tent, village, or onion-patch. He had first appeared in Cairo. Here he had of necessity picked up a few words of English; and from a laborer in the cotton fields he was eventually graduated to the envied position of dragoman or guide. He tired of this, being nomadic by instinct and inclination. He tried his hand at rugs in Smyrna, failed, and found himself stranded in Constantinople. He drifted, became a stevedore, a hotel porter, burying his pride till that moment when he could, in dignity and security, resurrect it. Fortune, hanging fire, relented upon his appointment as cavass or messenger to the British Consulate. After a time, he became what he considered prosperous; and like all fanatic pagans of his faith, proposed to reconstruct his religious life by a pilgrimage to Holy Mecca. While there, he had performed a considerable service in behalf of the future Pasha of Bagdad, who thereafter gave him a place in his retinue.

Mahomed was not only proud but wise; and a series of events, sequences of his own shrewdness, pushed him forward till he became in deed, if not in fact, the Pasha's right-hand man in Bagdad. That quaint city, removed as it is from the ordinary highways of the Orient, is still to most of us an echo remote and mysterious; and the present Pasha enjoys great privileges, over property, over life and death; and it is not enlarging upon fact to say that when he deems it necessary to lop off a head, he does so, without consulting his master in Constantinople. It is all in the business of a day. Next to his celebrated pearls and rose-diamonds, the Pasha held as his most precious treasure, the Holy Yhiordes. And for its loss Mahomed knew that his own head rested but insecurely upon his lean neck. That his star was still in ascendancy he believed. The Pasha would not be in Bagdad for many weeks. The revolution in Constantinople, the success of the Young Turk party, made the Pasha's future incumbency a matter of conjecture. While he pulled those wires familiar to the politician, Mahomed set out bravely to recover the stolen rug. He was prepared to proceed to any length to regain it, even to the horrible (to his Oriental mind) necessity of buying it. He retained his travel-worn garments circumspectly, for none would believe that his burnouse was well lined with English bank-notes.

"Well?" said Ryanne, whirling his cane. He was by no means at ease. There was going to be trouble somewhere along the road.

"I have come for the Yhiordes, effendi."

"The rug? That's too bad. I haven't it."

"Who has?" One fear beset Mahomed's heart: this dog, whom he called effendi, might have sold it, since that must have been the ultimate purpose of the theft. And if he had sold it to one who had left Egypt… Mahomed's neck grew cold. "Who has it, effendi? Is the man still in Cairo?"

"Yes. If you and your two friends will come with me to the English-Bar, I'll explain many things to you," assured Ryanne, beginning, as he believed, to see his way forward. "Don't be afraid. I'm not setting any trap for you. I'll tell you truthfully that I didn't expect to see you so soon. If you'll come along I'll do the best I can to straighten out the matter. What do you say?"

Mahomed eyed him with keen distrust. This white man was as strong in cunning as he was in flesh. He had had practical demonstrations. Still, whatever road led to the recovery of the rug must needs be traveled. His arm, though it still reposed in a sling, was not totally helpless. It stood three to one, then. He spoke briefly to his companions, over whom he seemed to have some authority. These two inventoried the smooth-faced Feringhi. One replied. Mahomed approved. Three to one, and in these streets many to call upon, in case of open hostilities. The English-Bar Mahomed knew tolerably well. He had known it in the lawless and reveling eighties. It would certainly be neutral ground, since the proprietor was a Greek. With a dignified sweep of his hand, he signed for Ryanne to get into the carriage. Ryanne did so, relieved. He was certain that he could bring Mahomed round to a reasonable view of the affair. He was even willing to give him a little money. The three Arabs climbed in beside him, and the journey to the hostelry was made without talk. Ryanne pretended to be vastly interested in the turmoil through which the carriage rolled, now swiftly, now hesitant, now at a standstill, and again tortuously. Once Mahomed felt beneath his burnouse for his money; and once Ryanne, in the pretense of seeking a cigar, felt for his. They were rather upon even terms in the adjudication of each other's character.

The English-Bar was not the most inviting place. Sober, Ryanne had never darkened its doors. The odor of garlic prevailed over the lesser smells of bad cooking. It was lighted only from the street, by two windows and a door that swung open all the days in the year. The windows were generally half obscured by bills announcing boxing-matches, wrestling-bouts and the lithographs of cheap theaters. The walls were decorated in a manner to please the inherent Anglo-Saxon taste for strong men, fast horses, and pink-tighted Venuses. A few iron-topped tables littered both room and sidewalk, and here were men of a dozen nationalities, sipping coffee, drinking beer, or solemnly watching the water-bubbles in their sheeshas, or pipes.

A curious phase of this class of under-world is that no one is curious. Strangers are never questioned except when they invite attention, which they seldom do. So, when Ryanne and his quasi-companions entered, there wasn't the slightest agitation. A blowsy barmaid stood behind the bar, polishing the copper spigots. Ryanne threw her a greeting, to which she responded with a smirk that once upon a time had been a smile. He, being master of ceremonies, selected a table in the corner. The four sat down, and Ryanne plunged intrepidly into the business under hand. To make a tool of Mahomed, if not an ally, toward this he directed his effort. Half a dozen times, Mahomed dropped a word in Arabic to the other two, who understood little or no English.