P. C. Wren - The Collected Works of P. C. Wren - Complete Beau Geste Series, Novels & Short Stories

Her voice seared and scorched me. . . . I tried to speak and could not.

"Nor do I feel that I shall incur any greater danger here than I should in setting off into the Desert again with a gentleman of your pronounced views on the subject of the relative importance of a woman and a piece of paper. . . . Nor shall my maid go with you. . . . I prefer to trust her, as well as myself, to these people of a less-developed singleness of purpose . . . and I like this Emir--enormously."

I found my voice. . . . Clumsily, owing to my wounds, I knelt before her. . . .

"Miss Vanbrugh . . . Mary . . ." I cried. "This is inhuman cruelty. . . . This is madness ! . . . Think! . . . A girl like yourself--a lovely fascinating woman-- here . . . alone . . . . You must be insane. . . . Think. . . . A hareem --these Arabs. . . . I would sooner shoot you here and now. . . . This is sheer incredible madness . . . ."

"Yes--like yourself, Major de Beaujolais," she replied, drawing back from me. " I am now 'mad' on the subject of Duty . . . . It has become an obsession with me too--(an example of the influence of one's companions upon one's character!)--and I find it my duty to leave you entirely free to give the whole of your mind to more important matters--to leave you entirely free to depart alone as soon as your business is completed--for I will be no further hindrance to you. . . . Good-bye, and--as I do not think I shall see you again--many thanks for bringing me here in safety, and for setting me so high a standard and so glorious an example. . . ."

* * *

I do not know what I replied--nor what I did. I was all French in that moment, and gave full rein to my terrible emotion.

But I know that Mary Vanbrugh left the tent with the cold words:

"Duty, Major de Beaujolais--before everything ! We will both do our Duty. . . . I shall tell the Emir el Hamel el Kebir that I intend to remain here indefinitely, under his protection, and that I hope he will give you your precious treaty, and send you off at once. . . . My conscience--awakened by you--will approve my doing what I now see to be my duty. . . . Good-bye, Major de Beaujolais. . . ."

I sat for hours with my pistol in my hand, and I think I may now claim to know what suffering is . . . . Never since that hour have I had a word of blame for the poor soul who blows his brains out. . . .

§ 2

I saw no one else that day, but during the night I was awakened from a fitful and nightmare-ridden doze by the Hadji Abdul Salam.

Once more he rehearsed his proposals and warnings, modified now by the elimination of Becque.

ONE: Would I, by his help, escape alone, immediately, and return with a strong French force and make him France's faithful (well-paid) vassal Emir Regent of the Great Confederation? Or

TWO: Would I promise him a great bag of gold and my help in his obtaining the Regency of the Confederation, if he procured the death of the Emir at the hands of Suleiman the Strong, and solemnly swore to poison the said Suleiman at as early a date thereafter as convenient! (He could not poison the Emir, for that distrustful man took all precautions against such accidents.)

He fully warned me that by rejecting both his proposals I should most certainly come to a painful and untimely end, and my two women become hareem slaves. He was in a position to state with certainty and truth that the Emir had decided to kill me and the Arab-Egyptian, keep the money, camels, weapons and other effects of both of us, and then accept the earlier offer of the Great Sheikh el Senussi and make an offensive and defensive alliance with him.

I heard him out, on the chance that I might glean something new.

When he had finished and I had replied with some terseness, I pointed to the doorway and remarked:

"And now, Holy One, depart in peace, before I commit an impiety. In other words--get out, you villainous, filthy, treacherous dog, before I shoot you. . . ."

The Hadji went, and as he crept from my tent, he ran into the arms of the Sheikh el Habibka el Wazir--and I saw him no more in this life, and do not expect to see him in the next.

I heard that he fell ill and died shortly after. People are apt to do so if they obstruct the ways of desert Emirs.

I lay awake till dawn, probably the most anxious, distracted, troubled man in Africa. . . .

Mary Vanbrugh. . . . France. . . . My Service. . . . My uncle. . . . My Duty. . . . An outraged, unforgivably insulted despot, a fierce, untrammelled tyrant whose "honour" was his life--and in whose hands lay the fate of the two women for whose safety I was responsible.

§ 3

Things came to a head the next night.

The Emir el Hamel el Kebir and the Sheikh el Habibka el Wazir entered my tent, and, as though nothing had happened to disturb the friendliest relationship, were cordially pleasant.

Much too friendly methought, and, knowing Arabs as I do, I could not suppress the feeling that their visit boded me no good. I grew certain of it--and I was right.

After formal courtesies and the refusal of such hospitalities as I could offer, the Emir said:

"Your Excellency has the successful accomplishment of this mission much at heart?"

"It would be a fine thing for your people and pleasing to mine," I replied. "Yes, I have it much at heart."

"Your Excellency has the welfare and happiness of the Sitt Miriyam much at heart?" went on the sonorous voice.

Was there a mocking note in it?

"So much so that I value it more than the Treaty," I replied.

"And the other night Your Excellency called me dog and swine , and filthy black devil , I think," was the Emir's next utterance.

"Yes," he went on, as I was silent. "Yes. And Your Excellency has these matters much at heart. He admires this fair woman greatly. Perhaps he loves her? Possibly he would even die for her? . . ."

The Vizier watched the Emir, stroked his beard, and smiled.

"Your Excellency would achieve a great deed for France? . . . But perhaps he loves France not so much that he would die for her? Perhaps this woman is as his Faith, since he is an Infidel? . . . Yes, perchance she is his Faith? . . ."

The two men now stared at me with enigmatic eyes, cruel, hard and unfathomable, the unreadable alien eyes of the Oriental. . . .

There was a brief silence, a contest of wills, a dramatic struggle of personalities.

" Are you prepared to die for your Faith? " asked the Emir--and I started as though stung. Where had I heard those words before? Who had said them?

I had. I had used those identical words to Becque himself at St. Denis, years ago. . . . Well, perhaps I could make a better showing than Becque had then done--as much better as my cause was nobler.

" I am ," I replied in the words of the dead man.

" You shall ," said the Emir, as I had said to Becque--and I swear that as he said it, the Vizier's face fell, and he smote his thigh in anger. . . . Was he my friend?

"Listen," said the Emir. "These two women shall go free, in honour and safety, on the day after Death has wiped out the insults you have put upon me. After those words ' dog ,' ' son of a dog ,' ' swine ,' ' black-faced devil ,' I think that we may not both live. . . . Nor would I slay with mine own hand the man who comes in peace and eats my salt. . . . Speak Roumi . . . ."

"What proof and assurance have I that you would keep your word, Emir?" I asked.

"None whatever--save that I have given it," was the reply. "It is known to all men who know me, that I have never broken faith; never failed in promise or in threat. . . . If you die by your own hand to-night, your white women are as free as air. I, the Emir el Hamel el Kebir, swear upon the Holy Q'ran and by the Beard of the Prophet and the Sacred Names of God that I will deliver the two Sitts, in perfect safety, wheresoever they would be."