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"Don't strip him of his romance yet," said I, again torn between interest in Monny's incredible statement, and excitement which grew with the growing in size of those flags on the horizon. "You may wrong him. If you saw only the first part of the letter " "There could be no mistake. It was in hieroglyphics, and who but 'Antoun' would have written such a letter to Aunt Clara?
I caught the look in your eyes, when you first saw him standing under the terrace at Shepheard's, and then, when the name "Antoun Effendi" came up in the conversation, I put two and two together. Mrs. East guesses, also. I don't know if she did from the first, but she does now. It isn't a question of "guessing" with either of us, really. It's a certainty.
We, too, would have gone, though the man and the girl were between us and the stairway, and we should have had to push past them. But Anthony, seeing our hesitation, spoke quietly. "Don't go," he said. "I may want you." Never until to-night had Monny Gilder heard him speak English. "You see," he said to her, "why I told you yesterday you would never see Antoun again.
Above the shouting of the Hadji, who was beginning to make himself heard by the crowd, it rang out shrill and clear a woman's voice: Monny Gilder's. She called on the name of Antoun, and then was silent. I lifted my candle-lantern all that was left to illumine the darkness, and saw at the far end of the court shadowy figures struggling together.
She wrote out exercises, and submitted them for correction to "Antoun" who, as an Egyptian, was to be considered an authority. "Of course," she explained to me, "one comes here thinking that all Egyptians nowadays, even Copts, are Arabs.
There's only one typewriter on board, isn't there?" "Yes, Kruger's." "And nobody but you and he and Captain Fenton ever use it, I suppose?" "Nobody else, so far as I know." "Captain Fenton didn't land with us to see the fort, but came up later, just as we were ready to go down. Well, for all these reasons and the note being in French Monny thinks it was written by Antoun Effendi.
Two were in European clothes, with the inevitable tarboosh; and two, equally well dressed, were old fashioned and picturesque in the long, silk gown and turban style which "Antoun" and other lovers of the ancient ways affected. They were of the "Effendi class," and might be merchants or professional persons. A turbaned man with a black beard Allen knew, and greeted in Arabic, "Hussein Effendi!
In less than an hour he arrived, and when he had listened to her account of what had happened, he said after a minute's reflection that the ladies had almost surely gone with Bedr to some hasheesh den, or a place masquerading as such. "Antoun" consoled Biddy as well as he could, by saying that no harm would come to Miss Gilder or Miss Guest.
Ahmed Antoun Effendi's own dignified, old-fashioned robes of the Egyptian gentleman flowed round his tall figure, when once more he took his place in the waiting arabeah this time not on the box seat and drove off at more furious speed than ever, toward the Temple of Mut. The Temple of Mut I think must always be mysterious even by day. That night it was more than mysterious. It was sinister.
He presented credentials written out for him in Cairo by Miss Rachel Guest, and dated a few weeks ago. Inquiring for her, he seemed sorry to hear that she had gone on the excursion. The dragoman refused to disturb Antoun Effendi, on hearing that the Hadji was writing in his cabin. His errand was not of enough importance to trouble so illustrious a man.
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