The White Prophet, Volume II (of 2)

"They never proceed to follow that light,But always follow me."

Half-an-hour afterwards, while the Sirdar's black body-guard were ranged up on the platform of the railway station, and his black servant was packing his luggage into his compartment, the Governor-General was standing by the door of the carriage, with his Aide-de-camp, giving his last instructions to his General Secretary.

"Telegraph to the Consul-General and say … but please make a note of it."

"Yes, sir," said the Secretary, taking out his pocketbook and preparing to write.

"Think it best to go down myself to deal personally with matter of suspected mutiny in native army. Must admit increasing gravity of situation. Man here is undoubtedly acquiring name and influence of Mahdi, so time has come to consider carefully what we ought to do. Signs of intended pilgrimage, probably in northerly direction, enormous numbers of camels, horses, and donkeys having been gathered up from various parts of country and immense quantities of food-stuffs being bought for desert journey. Am leaving to-night, and hope to arrive in four days."

"Four days," repeated the Secretary, as he came to an end.

At that moment a tall man in the costume of a Bedouin walked slowly up the platform. His head and most of his face were closely covered by the loose woollen shawl which the sons of the desert wear, leaving only his eyes, his nose, and part of his mouth visible. As he passed the Sirdar, he looked sharply at him; then, pushing forward with long strides until he came to the third-class compartments, he stepped into the first of them, which was full of coloured people, strident with high-pitched voices and pungent with Eastern odours.

"Who was that?" asked the Sirdar.

"I don't know, sir," replied the Secretary. "I thought at first it was their Bedouin Sheikh, but I see I was mistaken."

Then came the whistle of the locomotive, and its slow, rhythmic, volcanic throb. The guard saluted, and the Sirdar got into his carriage.

"Well, good-bye, Graham! Don't forget the telegram."

"I'll send it at once… In cypher, sir?"

"In cypher certainly."

At the next moment the Sirdar and Gordon Lord, travelling in the same train, were on their way to Cairo.

END OF THIRD BOOK

FOURTH BOOK

THE COMING DAY

CHAPTER I

The Consul-General had taken a firm grasp of affairs. Every morning his Advisers and Under-Secretaries visited him, and it seemed as if they could not come too often or say too much. He who rules the machine of State becomes himself a machine, and it looked as if Lord Nuneham were ceasing to be a man.

Within a week after the day on which he received Helena's letter, he was sitting in his bleak library walled with Blue-Books, with the Minister of the Interior and the Adviser to the same department. The Minister was the sallow-faced Egyptian Pasha whom he had made Regent on the departure of the Khedive; the Adviser was a tall, young Englishman with bright red hair on which the red tarboosh sat strangely. They were discussing the "special weapon" which had been designed to meet special needs. The Consul-General's part of the discussion was to expound, the Adviser's was to applaud, the Minister's was to acquiesce.

The special weapon was a decree. It was to be known as the Law of Public Security, and it was intended to empower the authorities to establish a Special Tribunal to deal with all crimes, offences, and conspiracies committed or conceived by natives against the State. The Tribunal was to be set up at any time and at any place on the request of the Agent and Consul-General of Great Britain; its sentences, which were to be pronounced forthwith, were not to be subject to appeal; and it was to inflict such penalties as it might consider necessary, including the death penalty, without being bound by the provisions of the penal code.

"Drastic!" said the Pasha, with a sinister smile.

"Necessary," said the Consul-General, with a frown.

The Pasha became silent again while the virtual ruler of Egypt went on to say that the state of the country demanded that the Government should be armed with special powers to meet widespread fanaticism and secret conspiracy.

"No one deplores more than I do," he said, "that the existing law of the land is not sufficient to deal with the new perils by which we are threatened, but it is not, and therefore we must make it stronger."

"Certainly, my lord," said the red-headed figure in the fez, and again the sinister face of the Pasha smiled.

"And now tell me, Pasha," said the Consul-General, "how long a time will it take to pass this law through the Legislative Council and the Council of Ministers?"

The Pasha looked up out of his small, shrewd eyes, and answered —

"Just as long or as short as your lordship desires."

And then the Consul-General, who was wiping his spectacles, put them deliberately on to his nose, looked deliberately into the Pasha's face, and deliberately replied —

"Then let it be done without a day's delay, your Excellency."

A few minutes afterwards, without too much ceremony, the Consul-General had dismissed his visitors and was tearing open a number of English newspapers which Ibrahim had brought into the room.

The first of them, The Times, contained a report of the Mansion House Dinner, headed "UNREST IN THE EAST. Important Speech by Foreign Minister."

The Consul-General found the beginning full of platitudes. Egypt had become the great gate between the Eastern and Western hemispheres. It was essential for the industry and enterprise of mankind that that gate should be kept open, and therefore it was necessary that Egypt should be under a peaceful, orderly, and legal Government.

Then, lowering the lights, the Minister had begun to speak to slow music. While it was the duty of Government to preserve order, it was also the duty of a Christian nation in occupation of a foreign country to govern it in the interests of the inhabitants, and, speaking for himself, he thought the executive authority would be strengthened, not weakened, by associating the people with the work of government. However this might be, the public could at least be sure that as long as the present Ministry remained in power it would countenance no policy on the part of its representatives that would outrage the moral, social, and, above all, religious sentiments of a Moslem people.

The Consul-General flung down the paper in disgust.

"Fossils of Whitehall! Dunces of Downing Street!"

For some minutes he tramped about the room, telling himself again that he didn't care a straw what any Government and any Foreign Minister might say because he had a power stronger than either at his back – the public.

This composed his irritated nerves, and presently he took up the other newspapers. Then came a shock. Without an exception the journals accepted the Minister's speech as a remonstrance addressed to him, and reading it so they sympathised with it.

One of them saw that Lord Nuneham, however pure and beneficent his intentions might be, had no right to force his ideals upon an alien race. Another hinted that he was destroying England's prestige in her Mohammedan dominions, and, if permitted to go on, he would not only endanger the peace of Egypt, but also the safety of our Indian Empire. And a third, advocating the establishment of representative institutions, said that the recent arbitrary action of the Consul-General showed in glaringly dangerous colours the faults of the One-Man Rule which we granted to the King's representative while we denied it to the King himself.

The great Proconsul was, for some moments, utterly shaken – the sheet-anchor of his public life was gone. But within half-an-hour he had called for his First Secretary and was dictating a letter to the Premier, who was also the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

"Having read the report of your lordship's speech at the Mansion House," he said, "I find myself compelled to tell you that so great a difference between your lordship's views and mine makes it difficult for me to remain in Egypt.

"I take the view that nine-tenths of these people are still in swaddling-clothes, and that any attempt to associate them with the work of government would do a grave injustice to the inarticulate masses for whom we rule the country.

"I also take the view that Egypt is honeycombed with agitators, who, masquerading as religious reformers, are sowing sedition against British rule, and that the only way to deal with such extremists is by stern repression.

"Taking these views and finding them at variance with those of your lordship, I respectfully beg to tender my resignation of the post of H.M.'s Agent, Consul-General and Minister Plenipotentiary, which I have held through so many long and laborious years, and at the same time to express the hope that my successor may be a man qualified by knowledge and experience of the East to deal with these millions of Orientals who, accustomed for seventy centuries to the dictation of imperial autocrats, are so easily inflamed by fanatics and yield so readily to the wily arts of spies and secret conspirators."

Having finished the dictating of his letter, the Consul-General asked when the next mail left for England, whereupon the Secretary, whose voice was now as tremulous as his hand had been, replied that there would be no direct post for nearly a week.

"That will do. Copy out the letter and let me have it to sign."

With a frightened look the Secretary turned to go.

"Wait! Of course you will observe absolute secrecy about the contents of it?"

With a tremulous promise to do so the Secretary left the room.

Then the Consul-General took up a calendar that had been standing on his desk and began to count the days.

"Five – ten – fifteen, and five days more before I can receive a reply – it's enough," he thought.

England's eyes would be opened by that time and the public would see how much the Government knew about Egypt. Accept his resignation? They dare not! It would do them good, though – serve as a rebuke, and strengthen his own hands for the work he had now to do.

What was that work? To destroy the man who had robbed him of his son.

CHAPTER II

Early the next morning the Consul-General received a letter from the Princess Nazimah, saying she had something to communicate, and proposed to come to tea with him. At five o'clock she came, attended by sais, footmen, and even eunuch, but wearing the latest of Paris hats and the lightest of chiffon veils.

Tea was laid on the shady verandah overlooking the fresh verdure of the garden, with its wall of purple bougainvillea, and thinking to set the lady at ease the Consul-General had told Fatimah, instead of Ibrahim, to serve it. But hardly had they sat down when the Princess said in French —

"Send that woman away. I don't trust women. I'm a woman myself, and I know too much of them."

A few minutes afterwards she said, "Now you can give me a cigarette. Light it. That will do. Thank you!" Then squaring her plump person in a large cane chair, she prepared to speak, while the Consul-General, who was in his most silent mood, composed himself to listen.

"I suppose you were surprised when this woman who blossomed out of a harem wrote to say that she was coming to take tea with you? Here she is, though, and now she has something to say to you."

Then puff, puff, puff from the scarlet lips, while the powdered face grew hard, and the eyes, heavily shaded with kohl, looked steadfastly forward.

"I have always suspected it, but I discovered it for certain only yesterday. And where did I discover it? In my own salon!"

"What did you discover in your own salon, Princess?" asked the Consul-General in his tired voice.

"Conspiracy!"

Trained as was the Consul-General's face to self-command it betrayed surprise and alarm.

"Yes, conspiracy against you and against England."

"You mean, perhaps, that the man Ishmael Ameer – "

"Rubbish! Ishmael indeed! He is in it, certainly. In a country like Egypt the holy man always is. Religion and politics are twins here – Siamese twins, you may say, for you couldn't get a slip of paper between them… What's that? The Mahdist movement political? Perhaps it was, but politics on the top of religion – the monkey on the donkey's back, you know. Always so in the East. The only way to move the masses is to make an appeal to their religious passions. They know that, and they've not scrupled to use their knowledge, the rascals! Rascals, that's what I call them. Excuse the word. I say what I think, Nuneham."

"They? Who are they, Princess?"

"The corps diplomatique."

Again the stern face expressed surprise.

"Yes, the corps dip-lo-ma-tique!" with a dig on every syllable. "Half-a-dozen of them were at my house yesterday and they were not ashamed to let me know what they are doing."

"And what are they doing, Princess?"

"Helping the people to rebel!"

Then throwing away her cigarette the Princess rose to her feet, and pacing to and fro on the verandah, with a firm tread that had little of the East and not much of the woman, she repeated the story she had heard in her salon – how Ishmael Ameer was to return to Cairo, with twenty, thirty, forty thousand of his followers, and some fantastic dream of establishing a human society that should be greater, nobler, wider, and more God-like than any that had yet dwelt on this planet; how the diplomats laughed at the ridiculous hallucination, but were nevertheless preparing to support it in order to harass the Government and dishonour England.

"But how?"

"By finding arms for the people to fight with if you attempt to keep their Prophet out! Ask your Inspectors! Ask your police! See if rifles bought with foreign money are not coming into Cairo every day."

By this time it was the Consul-General who was pacing up and down the verandah, while the Princess, who sat to smoke another cigarette, repeated the opinions of the foreign representatives one by one – Count This, who was old and should know better if white hairs brought wisdom; Baron That, who was as long as a palm tree but without a date; and the Marquis of So-and-So.

"They tell me because I'm a Turk; but a Turk need not be a traitor, so I'm telling you."

The iron face of the Consul-General grew white and rigid, but, saying nothing, he continued to pace to and fro.

"Why don't you turn them all out? They are making nothing but mischief. The head of the idle man is the house of the devil, and the best way is to pull it down. Why not? Capitulations! Pooh! While the meat hangs above, the dogs will quarrel below. Dogs, that's what I call them. Excuse the word. I speak what I think."

"And the Egyptians – what are they doing?"

"What are they always doing? Conspiring with your enemies to turn you out of the country on the ground that you are trampling on their religious liberty."

"Which of them?"

"All of them – pashas, people, effendis, officials, your own Ministers – everybody."

"Everybody?"

"Everybody! The stupids! They can't see farther than the ends of their noses, or realise that they would only be exchanging one master for fourteen. What would Egypt be then? A menagerie with all the gates of the cages open. Oh, I know! I say what I think! I'm their Princess, but they can take my rank to-morrow if they wish to."

The second cigarette was thrown away, and a powder-puff and small mirror were taken from a silver bag that hung from the lady's wrist.

"But serve you right, you English! You make the same mistake everywhere. Education! Civilisation! Judicial reform! Rubbish! The Koran tells the Moslem what to believe and what to do, so what does he want with your progress?"

The powder-puff made dabs at the white cheeks, but the lady continued to talk.

"Your Western institutions are thrown away on him. It's like a beautiful wife married to a blind husband – a waste!"

The sun began to set behind the wall of purple creeper and the lady rose to go.

"No news of your Gourdan yet? No? He was the best of the bunch, and I simply lost my heart to him. You should have kept him more in hand though… You couldn't? You, the greatest man in… Well, there's something to say for the Eastern way of bringing up boys, it seems."

Passing through the drawing-room the Princess came upon the portrait of Helena, which used to stand by Lady Nuneham's bed.

"Ah, the moon! The beauty! Bismillah! What did Allah give her such big black eyes for? Back in England, isn't she? My goodness, there was red blood in that girl's veins, Nuneham! God have mercy upon me, yes! You should have heard her talk of your Ishmael!"

The Princess put the portrait to her lips and kissed it, then closed her eyes and said with a voluptuous laugh —

"Ah, mon Dieu, if this had only been a Muslemah, you wouldn't have had much trouble with your Mahdi!"

Hardly had the Consul-General returned to his library after the departure of the Princess when his Secretary brought him a telegram from the Sirdar – the same that he had dictated at Khartoum, telling of the intended visit to Cairo, of the preparations for Ishmael's projected pilgrimage, and of the danger that was likely to arise from the growing belief in the Prophet's "divine" inspiration.

"So our friend is beginning to understand the man at last," he said, with an expression of bitter joy. "Meet him on his arrival. Tell him I have much to say."

That night when the Consul-General went up to his bedroom – the room in which alone the machine became the man – he was thinking, as usual, of Gordon.

"Such power, such fire, such insight, such resource! My own son too, and worth all the weaklings put together! Oh, that he could be here now – now, when every hand seems to be raised against his father! But where is he? What is he doing? Only God can say."

Then the Consul-General remembered what the Princess had said about Helena. Ah, if those two could have carried on his line – what a race! So pure, so clean, so strong! But that was past praying for now, and woe to the day when they had said to him, "A man child is born to you."

After that the Consul-General thought of Ishmael, and then the bitterness of his soul almost banished sleep. He had known from the first that the man could not be working alone; he had known, too, that some of England's "allies" were her secret enemies, but a combination of Eastern mummery with Western treachery was more than he had reckoned upon.

"No matter! I'll master both of them!" he thought.

A great historical tragedy should be played before the startled audience of disunited Europe, whose international jealousies were conspiring with religious quackeries to make the government of Egypt impossible, and when the curtain fell on that drama England would be triumphant, he would himself be vindicated, and the "fossils of Whitehall" would be ashamed.

Last of all he thought of the Egyptian Ministers. These were the ingrates he had made and worked with, but they were no fools, and it was difficult to understand why they were throwing in their lot with a visionary mummer who was looking for a millennium.

"I am at a loss to know what to think of a world in which such empty quackery can be supported by sane people," he thought.

There was one sweeter thought left, though, and as the Consul-General dropped off to sleep he told himself that, thanks to Helena, he would soon have Ishmael in his hands, and then he would kill him as he would kill a dangerous and demented dog.

CHAPTER III

During the next few days the Consul-General was closely occupied. The Law of Public Security being promulgated, he called upon the Minister of the Interior to call upon the Commandant of Police to issue a warrant for the arrest of Ishmael Ameer.

"But where is Ishmael Ameer?" asked the Minister.

When this was reported to the Consul-General his stern face smiled, and he said —

"Let him wait and see."

Early one morning his Secretary came to his room to say that the Sirdar had arrived from Khartoum, and had gone on to headquarters, but would give himself the pleasure of calling upon his lordship before long.

"Tell him it must be soon – there is much to do," said the Consul-General.

Later the same day the Commandant of Police came, with a knowing smile on his ruddy face, to say that the Bedouin had reached Cairo, and that he had been followed to the Serai Fum el Khalig, the palace of the Chancellor of El Azhar, where he had already been visited by the Grand Mufti, some of the Ministers, certain of the Diplomatic Corps and nearly the whole of the Ulema.

"Was he alone?" asked the Consul-General.

"Quite alone, your lordship, and now he is as safely in our hands as if he were already under lock and key."

"Good! What did you say his address was?"

"Serai Fum el Khalig."

"Palace Fum el Khalig," repeated the Consul-General, making a note on a marble tablet which stood on his desk.

Later still, very late, the Grand Cadi came with the same news. The suave old Moslem judge was visibly excited. His pale, lymphatic, pock-marked cheeks, his earth-coloured lips, his base eyes, and his nose as sharp as a beak, gave him more than ever the appearance of a fierce and sagacious bird of prey. After exaggerated bows, he began to speak in the oily, half-smothered voice of one who lives in constant fear of being overheard.

"Your Excellency will remember that when on former occasions I have had the inestimable privilege of approaching your honourable person in order to warn you that if you did not put down a certain Arab innovator the result would be death to the rule of England in Egypt, your Excellency has demanded proofs."

"Well?"

"I am now in a position to provide them."

"State the case precisely," said the Consul-General.

"Your Excellency will be interested to hear that a person of some consequence has arrived in Cairo."

Trained to self-control, the Consul-General conquered an impulse to say, "I know," and merely said, "Who is he?"

"He calls himself Sheikh Omar Benani, and is understood to be the wise and wealthy head of the great tribe of the Ababdah Bedouins who inhabit the country that lies east of Assouan to the Red Sea."

"Well?"

"The man who calls himself Omar Benani is – Ishmael Ameer."

At that the base eyes glanced up with a look of triumph, but the Consul-General's face remained immovable.

"Well?"

"No doubt your Excellency is asking yourself why he comes in this disguise, and if your Excellency will deign to give me your attention I will tell you."

"I am listening."

"Ishmael Ameer pretends to be a reformer intent upon the moral and intellectual regeneration of Islam, and he preaches the coming of a golden age in which unity, peace and brotherhood are to reign throughout the earth.

"Well?"

"With this ridiculous and impracticable propaganda he has appealed to many wild and ardent minds, so that a vast following of half-civilised people whom he has gathered up in the Soudan are to start soon – may have started already – for this city, which they believe to be the Mecca of the new world."

"Well?"

"Ishmael Ameer pretends to have come to Cairo in advance of his followers to prepare for that millennium."

"And what has he really come for?"

"To establish a political State."

Down to that moment the Consul-General had been leaning back in his chair in the attitude of one who was listening to something he already knew, but now he sat up sharply.

"Is this a fact?"

"It is a fact, your Excellency. And if your Excellency will once more deign to grant me your attention, I will put you in possession of a secret."

"Go on," said the Consul-General.

Instinctively the suave old judge drew his legs up on his chair and fingered his amber beads.

"Your Excellency will perhaps remember that owing to differences of opinion with the Khedive – may Allah bless him! – you were compelled to require that for a while he should leave the country."

"Well?"

"He went to Constantinople with the intention of laying his grievances against England before His Serenity the Sultan – may the Merciful give him long life!"

"Well?"

"The Sultan is a friend of England, your Excellency – the Khedive was turned away."