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Updated: May 24, 2025
"No news exactly," said the big man, "but I feel sure your niece and her friend are safe " "My niece and her friend!" exclaimed Cleopatra, ungratefully frowning. "Why do you say nothing of 'Antoun? Does nobody care what becomes of him?" As she spoke, there was a knock at the door. One of the Arab servants of the hotel announced that a man had a letter for Mrs. Jones. "Mrs. Jones?" cried Biddy.
So splendid were they that had I been a woman my spirit would have rushed back along the sand-obliterated, devious paths of Egypt's history, to find and fall at the feet of their original. But there was Antoun, much easier to get at, and perhaps better worth the gift of a woman's heart than Rameses the Great with all his faults and cruelties!
"Antoun" accounted for his presence in front of Rechid Bey's high garden wall, by attracting a crowd, and lecturing them in his character of Hadji, while I dashed off in a jingling arabeah, to the American Consulate. As in Cairo, my progress was one long adjuration of the crowd by the driver, who would have revelled in conducting the car of Juggernaut. "Shemalak, ya welad!"
East, when the scheme, whatever it was, might be no more than an innocent freak; so Biddy said nothing to Queen Cleopatra or her Roman attendant. She slipped across the garden to the hotel, and sent an Arab messenger off in a taxi with a note to the address "Antoun" had told her would find him.
Rather than miss the joy of seeing herself on a stone wall as others had had the privilege of seeing her for two thousand years, she consented to accept as a seat a large gray animal, tasselled with red to keep off flies and evil eyes. "Won't you ride with me, Antoun Effendi?" she asked. "I'm afraid. This creature looks as large as an elephant and as wild as a zebra. I feel you could calm him."
Without his green turban, or in European coat instead of his graceful silk robe, and away from these luminous sunsets of pale rose and gold and emerald, Antoun would be nothing extraordinary, would he? He says he is considered old fashioned in his way of dress. Most of his friends wear European clothes, and the tarboosh which Egyptians love because it never blows away or falls off when they pray.
But Antoun Effendi was not going to ride. He had other fish to fry; and poor Cleopatra's luminous dark eyes were like overflowing lakes, when he had politely excused himself on the plea of a pressing engagement.
Just how much "going about," and falling in love, I should be able to do there, depended on "Antoun Effendi." But when Biddy congratulated me on my luck, and chance of success in the "scheme," I said nothing of Anthony. Now, at last, I can skip over the three days at sea, and get to our arrival at Alexandria, because, as I've said, the exciting part began soon after, at Cairo.
Of course we were to wait for him, but I don't like the picture you've painted " "Oh, do look for him!" broke in Monny. "Leave us to take care of ourselves. I'm sure we can. There are enough of us. And Mr. Bronson is a Consul. Go and get the police." "I can't leave you," I said. "Antoun would be the last one to forgive me if I did that. But I'll start off the party, now.
"I should think the other part of the 'partly' is more convincing," I remarked; and Monny blushed. "Perhaps you know that your friend Antoun Effendi thinks me the most selfish as well as the most obstinate girl he ever saw," she said. "And I don't intend to have foreigners like him go on doing American girls an injustice. Besides, maybe he's right about me and I want him to be wrong.
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