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Updated: May 13, 2025
If only Judith were here to advise me! And yet I have an uneasy feeling that Judith will suggest, with a certain violence that is characteristic of her, the one course which I cannot follow: to send Carlotta back to Hamdi Effendi. But I cannot break my word. I would rather, far rather, break Carlotta's beautiful neck. I have not written to Judith.
It was a brown, sinewy hand on his shoulder, a hand protruding from a well tailored gray sleeve and lilac striped cuff, that caught Hamdi Bey by the epauleted shoulder and sent him spinning about. Another hand was holding a revolver very directly at him. "Silence!" said Jack Ryder in his best Turkish and repeated it, with amplification, in English. "Not a sound or I'll blow your head off."
And in McLean's other ear a distraught Thatcher was murmuring "That officer chap is Hamdi Bey a General of the Guards. You know, Mr. McLean, this really is you know, it is " Hamdi Bey ... Hamdi Bey, two days after his distressing loss, befriending this sheik and trying to involve Jack Ryder in disgrace. Mystifying. Mystifying and disquieting yes, disquieting, in the face of Jack's alarm.
I have never given your imaginative faculties sufficient credit. It bowled Hamdi out clean." "Yes," said I. "It bowled him out clean." "Serve him right," said Pasquale. "He's the wickedest old thief unhung." "Quite so," said I, "the wickedest old thief unhung." Pasquale shook me by the arm. "Are you a man or a phonograph? What on earth has happened to you?"
"That's Hamdi Effendi, all right," said Pasquale. Carlotta clutched my arms as I joined her at the back of the box. "Oh, take me away, Seer Marcous, take me away," she moaned piteously. My poor child was white and shaken with fear. I again put my arm round her. "No harm can happen to you, dear," I said, soothingly. "Oh, darling Seer Marcous, take me home," cried Carlotta.
I must have lost consciousness for a few seconds for I do not remember entering or mounting the stairs. I found myself at the bureau asking for Hamdi Effendi. No, he had not left. They thought he was in the hotel. A page despatched in search of him departed with my card, bawling a number. I hate these big caravanserais where one is a mere number, as in a gaol.
It was a different world from that bright, modern Cairo that she knew; this was as remote from her daily life as the old streets of Al Raschid. Her thoughts flew forward to that unknown lord, that Hamdi Bey, whose image she had refused to assemble to her consciousness.
When shall I learn the soul of her? Well, jacta est alea. The events of to-night have precipitated our destiny. In all probability Hamdi is powerless to take her from my protection, and this marriage is unnecessary as a safeguard. I have no notion of the international law on such points but at any rate it will make the assurance of her safety absolute. No power on earth can take her from me.
"Very well," said I. I helped her on with her wrap, and apologising to the two others, begged them to remain. "We'll all go together," said Judith quietly. "And form a body-guard," laughed Pasquale. Carlotta clinging to my arm we left the box and slipped through the promenade and down the stairs. Hamdi Effendi, having anticipated our intention, cut off our retreat in the vestibule.
Slowly the men lifted the lid.... In that moment McLean became aware that his heart was pumping thickly somewhere in his throat and that the rest of him was a hollow, horrible void of suspense. Hamdi Bey turned his arrogant stare from young Ryder and looked down.... Drawing closer, fearfully McLean's eyes followed him. He could not believe their evidence.
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