The Sultan's Daughter rb-7

by Dennis Wheatley

  The resentment of some of the senior officers at Bonaparte having got them into this situation was still more bitter than that of their juniors, for many of them had made fortunes during the Italian campaign and now they saw no prospect of ever getting back to France to enjoy them. Even Generals such as Lannes, Bessieres and Murat, who owed everything to Bonaparte, criticized him openly in his presence until, on one occasion, he was stung into rounding on them and snapping at the huge mulatto, Dumas:

  'Enough of your seditious parleys! Take care that I do not perform my duty. Your six feet of stature shall not save you from being shot.*

  Very few officers were prepared to stand up for their General-in-Chief, but among them was the faithful Junot, whom he had picked out when a Seargeant at Toulon and made his very first aide-de-camp. Junot heard one of his brother Generals, Lanusse, make some disparaging remarks about their master and promptly joined issue with him. Murat was also present and, wishing to reconcile them, invited them both to dine with him that day. Bessieres, Lannes, Lavalette, Leclerc, Roger and several other officers were also invited. After dinner they sat down to cards. Junot was the biggest winner and after a time had a pile of gold pieces in front of him. Lanusse, having lost heavily, asked him for the loan of ten louis, upon which Junot replied, ' I'll not lend money to a traitor like you.'

  Instantly everyone was on his feet. Lanusse retorted that Junot was a scoundrel. The others endeavoured to pacify them, but it was useless. Although duels were forbidden they insisted on fighting at once, and that it should be a duel to the death.

  Lanusse, being the challenged party, had the choice of weapons and chose pistols. It was an insane choice because Junot was the best pistol-shot in the Army and at twenty-five paces could cut a bullet in two on the blade of a knife. With great generosity he refused to fight with pistols and, despite the protests of his friends, insisted that it should be swords.

  The palace occupied by Murat had a pleasant garden sloping down to the Nile, and they trooped out there. By then it was nine o'clock and darkness had fallen; so their host tried to stop the duel on the pretext that they could not see well enough for it to be a fair fight. But Lanusse shouted some offensive expressions about Bonaparte, and Lannes cried with an oath, 'Hold your tongue! You're going to cut one another's throats. Isn't that enough? '

  Torches were fetched and by their light the two Generals threw off their coats, then sparks flew from their sabres as each tried to cut down the other. The impetuous Junot delivered a stroke that would have killed Lanusse had he not been wearing his hat. As it was, the hat saved his head and the point of the blade laid open only his cheek. In delivering the blow, Junot had exposed himself and, Lanusse being the better swordsman, brought his sabre round in a back-hander that inflicted a terrible wound eight inches long right across Junot's stomach.

  It fell to Roger, the following morning, to break to his master the news of the affair and that Junot was lying at death's door. Bonaparte's first words were,' My poor Junot! Wounded for me! But the idiot; why did he not fight with pistols? ' Then, seized by one of his terrible rages, he cried:

  ' Why am I cursed with such Generals? Have they not enough to do with the Mamelukes and the Arabs, that they must go into the reeds of the Nile and cut each other's throats among the crocodiles? For this Junot deserves putting under arrest for a month as soon as he gets well.'

  Another General who was constantly whining to get home was Berthier. While in Rome, the ugly little man had fallen in love with the beautiful Madame Visconti. So consumed with passion for her was he that during the campaign his Staff-work had gone all to pieces, and Bourrienne had actually come upon him in his tent, kneeling on the ground and praying before a portrait of his lovely mistress.

  Roger could sympathize with him, as his own craving for Zanthe continued unabated. The Provost Marshal's police had completely failed to trace ben-Jussif; but towards the end of August chance led to Roger's seeing her again.

  Among Bonaparte's endeavours to render the garrison of Cairo more content had been the organizing of the Tivoli Garden. A number of cafes had been opened there, at which officers and men could drink, play cards and discuss the news that came in from the Divisions that were still carrying on a guerilla warfare in the desert. It was also frequented by the few Frenchwomen who had succeeded in smuggling themselves on to the ships of the armada, or had since managed to reach Egypt on other vessels, the wives and daughters of the European merchants established in Cairo and of those wealthy Copts who were not, like the Moslem ladies, confined to harems.

  In the cool of the evenings, except that it was graced with palms instead of chestnut trees, it had become more or less a replica of the garden of the Palais Royal in Paris. Zanthe was half French, and Roger had a faint hope that one evening she might come to the garden; so he often frequented it; but it was not there that he was destined to meet her.

  Other diversions instituted by Bonaparte were duck-shoots in the early morning in the marshes of the Nile, and boating parties on the river later in the day. One afternoon Roger, Duroc and Lavalette decided to go on a boating expedition, so went down to one of the wharves. Two handsome palanquins had been set down on it. They obviously belonged to someone of importance, for not only were there negro bearers lounging beside them but also an escort of Turkish Janissaries.

  While Roger and his fellow aides-de-camp were waiting for a boat, a beautiful gilded barge pulled in to the wharf. Two more Janissaries sprang out of it and proceeded to help ashore half a dozen Muslim ladies. All of them were wrapped in voluminous robes of silk and wore yashmaks which concealed the lower parts of their faces. The first of the group was obviously elderly and, as she passed the French officers, she lowered her eyes to the ground; but the second gave them a quick glance and Roger caught it. He would have known those wonderful tawny eyes anywhere.

  ' Zanthe! ' he cried, springing forward.

  The startled look in her eyes showed that she had already recognized him but, instantly, she switched her glance away and hurried after the leader of the group towards the more richly decorated of the two palanquins. At Roger's cry, the Janissaries gave him an angry stare and closed round the ladies. Duroc, meanwhile, had grabbed him by the arm, pulled him back and demanded:

  ' What are you about? '

  ' That lady . . .' Roger stammered. '1 know her! Let me go! I must speak with her.'

  Stiil gripping his arm, Duroc exclaimed, ' You cannot! Are you mad? You know the General-in-Chief's orders. These people are Turks, and of high standing. They are our allies, and he'll have your head off if you interfere with one of their women.'

  'She's not a Turk; she's French! Or half French, anyway,' Roger protested. But Duroc continued to cling to him, while the six women mounted into the palanquins and were borne away.

  For a further few minutes Roger and Duroc wrangled, then, on Roger's giving his word that he would do nothing rash, Duroc let him go. Hurriedly he set off after his beloved until he came up to within a dozen paces of the rear palanquin, and he followed it at a slower pace. For a quarter of an hour the little cavalcade wound its way through the tortuous streets of the old city, then entered the courtyard of a large palace that Roger instantly recognized. It was that of the Sultan's Viceroy, who had fled, and it had since been occupied by the Pasha whom he had left behind as his deputy.

  Far from being elated at having at last discovered where Zanthe now lived, Roger was cast into further depths of misery. Violent jealousy was now added to the torment of his loss, for it seemed obvious that Zanthe, having lost her husband, had been taken as a concubine by the powerful Pasha. The thought of her in the arms of that grossly fat, cunning Oriental, whom he had seen on several occasions, nearly drove Roger into a frenzy. Blinded by rage he stalked the streets, heedless of where he was going, and it was over an hour before he had cooled down sufficiently to think clearly.

  Returning to the palace, he made a careful reconnaissance. In his fervid imagination he was now visualizing h
imself breaking in and rescuing Zanthe from the horrible fate that he felt certain must have been forced upon her by her family. The entrance to the courtyard was guarded by Janissaries and on either side it was flanked by other palaces; so he walked through several narrow, zigzagging alleys until he judged that he had got behind it. Some minutes elapsed before he was able to make quite certain of his bearings; but at length he satisfied himself that a long, eighteen-foot-high wall, with iron spikes on top and the fronds of palm trees showing above them, must screen from sight the bottom of the spacious garden of the palace.

  In the wall there was a single, low doorway of stout wood bound with iron. It was barred on the inside, and one glance at it was sufficient to tell him that it would be difficult to force short of blowing it open with gunpowder. It reminded him of a similar door that he had blown open in India, also with the intention of rescuing a lovely lady from a harem.

  But the circumstances had then been very different. He had had British troops to aid him, the girl inside had been English and, in all but name, his wife; for they had planned to marry as soon as they could get home. Now, even if he procured a bag of gunpowder and blew in the door, how could he hope to overcome single-handed the score or more of Janissaries that the Pasha retained as a bodyguard?

  A further thought then cooled his ardour. Could he even count on Zanthe being willing to let him carry her off? It was possible that, as an Eastern woman, brought up in the Mohammedan traditions, she had never expected to have a young and handsome husband. As the daughter of an Arab merchant she might even count herself lucky to have become—as her beauty would ensure —the pampered favourite in a wealthy nobleman's seraglio.

  Loath to give up his wild idea of regaining possession of Zanthe by force, he spoke to a man who was sitting in a doorway of one of the houses facing the wall. On the flimsy excuse that he was feeling faint from lack of air, he offered the man a piece of money to be allowed to go up and sit for a while on the roof of his house. The man, who was a leather merchant, readily agreed and led him through his shop, up two flights of rickety stairs on to the roof. Like nearly all the roofs in Cairo it was flat and, the house being a two-storey one, only a few feet above the level of the wall opposite.

  From there Roger could see, two hundred yards away, the upper storeys of the back of the palace and the domes of its roof, but his hopes of seing into the garden were disappointed. Immediately inside the wall a double row of palm trees had been planted, so that their interlaced fronds rose for another dozen feet above the wall, thus securing the privacy of the garden from the gaze of the occupants of the dwellings outside it. If he came and sat there for hours every day, there still would be no chance of even catching a glimpse of his divinity.

  Returning to his house he refused the meal that had been prepared for him and spent a miserable evening thinking of plans to get speech with Zanthe, only to reject them. Had she been living in the house of her former husband, he might have got into it by disguising himself as an Arab pedlar of silks, fans or perfumes, or he could have kept observation on it until, as sooner or later must prove the case, she would be carried from it in a litter to visit friends or go shopping in the bazaar. But, even if he could get into the palace, he knew that he would never be allowed into the seraglio, and any attempt to waylay her when she left would be equally hopeless, as it was certain that she would be accompanied by a guard of Janissaries.

  Next day, almost ill with longing for her, he resumed his duties. But he was not the only one mooching round headquarters in a state of sullen depression, although the others had different reasons. The situation of the Army was going from bad to worse. Many of the men had become victims of venereal disease, contracted from the coloured street-women, and several hundred were suffering from acute ophthalmia, caught while bathing in the polluted waters of the Nile. Food was becoming scarcer than ever and from Alexandria and Rosetta Kleber and Menou both reported actual famine; because Nelson, realizing how short the French were of supplies, had deliberately put ashore the three thousand sailors he had captured at Aboukir, to deplete further their scant reserves.

  In spite, too, of all Bonaparte's blandishments, the half-million population of Cairo were becoming increasingly restless. They were finding, as had other people whose countries he had occupied, that' liberation ' by the French had to be paid for in no uncertain manner. Not only were taxes exacted as heavy as they had had to pay under the brutal oppression of the Mamelukes, but the French, having lost their own treasure in L'Orient, were now seizing hoards of gold wherever they could find them, in order to pay their troops. The number of French soldiers murdered increased weekly, and even the Turkish officials would no longer co-operate with their ' allies' except when practically forced to do so.

  Bonaparte continued to work like a demon and showed no lack of confidence in the future. But at about this time he received a terrible personal blow, about which Roger heard from Bourrienne.

  The letters that now got through from France were very few, but one had reached Junot. Among other news, it stated that Josephine was being unfaithful to her husband and that her infidelities were so flagrant that they were the talk of Paris. Junot, who regarded Bonaparte as a god, could not endure the thought that his wife should betray him. He became so enraged that he committed the shocking indiscretion of showing the letter to his beloved master.

  Bonaparte had good cause to suspect that Josephine had already been unfaithful to him within a few weeks of their marriage. He had had to leave her in Paris after a single night's honeymoon to set off on his Italian campaign and, despite his passionate appeals by letter to her, many months had elapsed before he could persuade her to join him in Italy. Now that he was convinced of her infidelity his rage and despair knew no bounds.

  Some days later, in the hope of getting Josephine out of his mind, he ordered Duroc to arrange an entertainment for himself and his Staff at which he could inspect a number of Eastern beauties. Duroc, being puritanical by nature, was not the man to have been charged with this commission, and he bungled matters badly, probably by simply ordering an Arab slave-dealer to select the beauties for him. In any case, those produced at the Haman where the party was held were to the Arab and not the European taste. They were quite young, but had been specially fattened by a regime of idleness and gorging great quantities of sweetmeats. Their breasts were huge and their bottoms enormous. In vain they sang a monotonous chant in shrill voices, twanged their lyres and wagged their naked stomachs in a Nautch dance. Bonaparte looked on sourly for a while, then stood up and stalked out in disgust.

  Yet, a few days later, his interest was really caught, and by a Frenchwoman he chanced to see in the Tivoli Garden. Roger, who happened to be with him, was promptly charged to find out who she was. As Roger had once before played ponce, in the service of his country, to Bonaparte, he had no objection to doing so again in the hope of cheering up the unhappy little Corsican and rendering the atmosphere at headquarters slightly less sultry.

  The following evening he was able to report that the lady's name was Marguerite Pauline Foures, and that she was the wife of a Lieutenant in the 22nd Infantry of the Line. They had married only just before the expedition had sailed for Egypt and were so loath to part that, disguised in the uniform of a soldier, she had accompanied her husband on the voyage. Bonaparte then told Roger to arrange a little dinner party, at which the lady would be present.

  Using General Dupuy, who was then Commander of the Cairo garrison, as his willing stalking horse, Roger arranged for the party to be held at the General's house. He then got together half a dozen other senior officers whose wives had, in one way or another, succeeded in reaching Cairo, and had an invitation sent to Madame Foures, which did not include her husband. In spite of that the lady, doubtless flattered by this attention from the High Command and even, perhaps, hoping to advance her husband's prospects, accepted.

  After dinner the General-in-Chief dropped in. With his usual directness he stared at Marguerite Pauli
ne as though he meant to eat her, and nobody could deny that she was worth staring at. She was small, had a lovely figure, big violet eyes and such an abundance of fair, golden hair that it was said that it would make a cloak for her whole body. To these personal charms were added great vitality, a bubbling sense of humour, a silvery laugh and a voice which would have enabled her to earn her living as a professional singer.

  That evening Bonaparte attempted nothing, but told Roger that he must arrange another dinner party, and soon. Roger obliged and, before hand, received his master's instructions. This time the General-in-Chief attended the dinner, sitting on one side of Pauline while Roger sat on the other. The meal had hardly started when Roger, carrying out his orders, clumsily spilt his soup into Pauline's lap. His master jumped to his feet, abused him roundly and, taking Pauline by the arm, hurried her off into another room to help her repair the damage. To the considerable embarrassment of the rest of the party they were away for two hours.

  The next move was to get rid of Pauline's husband. Bonaparte sent for him and said that he had heard such excellent reports of him that he had decided to do him a signal honour. Handing him a bulky despatch, he told him to return to France and deliver it to the Directory. The astonished Lieutenant, believing that his fortune was made, hurried off to Alexandria and went aboard a merchant ship. As the wily Corsican had expected, the ship and Lieutenant Four&s were promptly captured by the English.

  By then, Bonaparte had installed the gay and charming La Belilotte, as Pauline was nicknamed, in his own palace and, with the utmost cheerfulness, was parading her about Cairo openly as his mistress. The British had many spies in Cairo and the Commodore in charge of the blockade had learned of the French General-in-Chief's infatuation; so he decided to play him a scurvy trick. He told the gullible Foures that his ship had been ordered to the Pacific and that it would be inconvenient to have a prisoner on board for many months. Then he courteously put him ashore.