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When the gentlemen came home in the middle of the night, they were angry with him because they said he had shown them the wrong tent. But that was unjust. It was the only time they had been unkind. Except for that, they had been good, and had given him plenty of money for a while. At Asiut and Luxor they had been pleased with him. All they wanted at Rechid Bey's house, was to get the thing Mrs.
Monny and Biddy were quivering with fear lest they should be refused admission, as at Asiut: but this time their coachman was Ahmed Antoun, carefully disguised as a common driver of an arabeah, a rather exaggeratedly common driver perhaps, for his face and turban were not as clean as the face and turban of a self-respecting Moslem ought to be.
I had given my after-dinner lecture the night before, trying to behave as if I were not boiling with emotion, and had told those who deigned to listen that Asiut, "City of the Wolves," was the capital of a province. "Antoun" and I hinted at business which must prevent our joining the sightseers, who would be chaperoned by the dragoman.
"I hope that fellow Rechid Bey hasn't worked up any trouble against us," the American Consul from Asiut said in a low, somewhat worried tone. Instantly I was certain that what he hoped had not happened, was indeed the thing that had happened.
Down on the pavement, close under the balustrade, crowded young and old Egyptian men with dark faces and wonderful eyes or no eyes at all, struggling to sell painted post-cards, strings of blue-gray mummy beads; necklaces of cornelian and great lumps of amber; fans, perfumes, sample sticks of smoking incense, toy camels cleverly made of jute; fly whisks from the Sudan with handles of beads and dangling shells; scarab rings and brooches; cheap, gay jewellery, scarfs from Asiut, white, black, pale green and purple, glittering like miniature cataracts of silver, as brown arms held them up.
Was Monny Gilder to have been murdered in the dark Sanctuary, or was she to have been kidnapped? Either seemed an impossible undertaking, unless the plotters were willing to face certain detection and arrest. As it was, we had no more tangible proof against the man than we had before, at the House of the Crocodile, in the desert near Medinet, at Asiut, and at Luxor.
It was some dragoman you employed in Cairo, he told me, who had seen us getting off the Laconia, and who ran after his carriage in the street, in Asiut. The wicked creature warned him that you were all there, and that he'd heard you say something which sounded as if there were a plot to get at me. Just at that minute, by the worst of luck, Mr. Sheridan passed.
East followed sedately in a carriage with the elderly Greek interpreter, and Miss Hassett-Bean, who also fancied the idea of a Sicilian lap-dog, to replace the lamented Marmoset. Everything glittered at Asiut.
There lived near Asiut, it seemed, an Italian who bred Sicilian lap-dogs, said to be like those which had been favourite pets in the day of Cleopatra the Great. Indeed, Antony was supposed to have given one to the Queen. Now, Fenton asked permission to present a Sicilian lap-dog to Mrs. East, a dog so small, so polite, that he could be taken anywhere.
I've been wondering if I dared write, and thinking of all sorts of desperate plans. But, Biddy thought we must wait till Wretched was off his guard. You see, we shall have to rescue her when we get to Asiut." I would have answered, but a look from Biddy enjoined silence. And so we were in touch with the "Ship's Mystery" again!
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