by Jane Jakeman
“Well, there’s precious few folk come looking for the gypsies for their pleasure, young sir! Unless it be some fool like myself, wanting companions for an evening in a tavern! I’m part gypsy myself — but I married out of the life and the old ways are dead now — or almost dying. I have no wish to live upon the road — but still, I wish them no harm, and so why should I tell you what I know — if I know anything, that is?”
“I can reward you.” Young Sholto clinked a purse.
“Aye, but can you protect me from vengeance if they say I have betrayed them? They can track a man down, you know, from one end of the country to another, if they have sworn to do it.”
“That is exactly what I want from them — to track a man down — but not for any harm to him, I promise you.”
The fellow still seemed reluctant, passing his hand across his mouth as if thinking upon things, but he was suddenly startled into speech again. The horses of the carriage in which I was sitting, wrapped in my thickest cloak, as this encounter took place, shifted slightly, moving the coach forward a foot or two, and I saw the eyes of the new acquaintance fall upon the black wolf’s head coat of arms painted upon the door.
“That crest over there — what’s that?”
“The coat of arms of Malfine. Do you know it?”
“Never seen it before in my life,” replied the other, maddeningly, yet I could tell somehow it was the response of a perfect automaton, which he would give on any topic to any person who might have some connection with authority.
Then he came across towards the carriage and peered at it with his bleary eyes for a few minutes, as if scrutinising it carefully. “But I’ve heard something about it. If you come on behalf of the man who has the right to use that crest, I’ll help you to the Romanies and you can keep your money. There are times when it’s bad luck to take money, strangely enough!”
We never learnt his name.
That is all that I can tell you so far and I will leave all further enquiries to Sholto.
I have given more thought to the matter of which we spoke before you left. Are you not likely, after all, to make a match with someone of your own status in life, some lady of aristocratic breeding who will make a suitable mistress for Malfine should you desire one day to re-open the full glories of your mansion? A lady who. would provide you with a suitable heir to the Malfine estates? My family is untitled stock and not such as grand personages of your own rank would find acceptable as a match for you.
At all events, I am not going to stay here at Malfine and mope till your return, like some wailing queen in a tragedy! You would not respect that, and I do not wish to experience it!
Elisabeth
NINETEEN - The Further Narrative of Lord Ambrose Malfine
The Arabian Lady was at anchor, her sails flapping gently in the breeze that drifted unseriously through the harbour. The pearly, scummy, dirty waters of the Mediterranean lapped at the old stone masonry that had probably seen Cleopatra’s ships set sail for Actium.
The ship was a fast schooner, however indolent the scene in which she might now appear. She had a high, sharp keel that would slice through the water like a knife, and the lookout on her deck knew his business. He challenged me as we stepped onto the gang-plank.
“We desire to see the master of this ship, if it is pleasing. And possible.”
The sailor looked me over, took in my obviously European appearance which must have made somewhat of a contrast with the Arabic with which I addressed him, and came to a decision. “It is possible.”
He swung down into the depths of the vessel.
The man who came up to greet us was clearly not a sailor; he was dressed in elaborate brocaded robes and was bareheaded and had pomaded hair, Western style.
“I am the owner of this vessel — the captain is not aboard at present. You have business with the Arabian Lady?”
“A morning of light to you!”
“A morning of roses!”
“A morning of jasmine!”
We exchanged the traditional courtesies warily. Then I judged it possible to explain the purpose of my visit. The wind was blowing more strongly now and the gorgeous robes fluttered as my host bowed and ushered me on board.
“We have come on behalf of one of your passengers — well, that is to say, in a way on his behalf, but it would be truer to say on behalf of his heirs, if he has any. He died yesterday, near Cairo.”
I held out the ticket which had been found in Casterman’s pocket.
“As you see, this man had a passage booked with you. I am here to represent the British Consul and to recover any effects which Casterman, for that was his name, may have had transferred to your vessel for the voyage.”
“I deeply regret to hear of such misfortune. What were the circumstances of his death, may I enquire?”
Here I coughed and paused. “His Majesty’s Consul is still enquiring into the circumstances of the death and I am not yet at liberty to reveal anything — but I have heard that it was an accident occurring at one of the old tombs near the Pyramids.”
“Ah, I am not at all surprised, though very sad, of course, to hear it! But there are old shafts there, going deep into the ground — deep and treacherous, still guarding the passages into the tombs!”
“Yes, I believe there was a fall down into one of the shafts.” Well, I reasoned to myself, that had certainly been a contributory factor.
“My dear sir, such accidents occur if people do not take every precaution and are not accompanied by experienced guides. But Mr Casterman was more at risk than most, I believe, for he had a great interest in antiquities.”
“Indeed?”
“Oh, yes — allow me to present myself — I am Signor Moroni, a dealer in antiquities in my modest way. You may have heard of my little enterprise perhaps — I have an antique shop in the Khan el-Khalili, the souk in Cairo. We have curios, antiques and so forth — just exactly the sort of thing that appealed to poor Mr. Casterman! He took such a keen interest in ancient Egypt — I daresay he was pursuing his hobby when the accident occurred.”
“I daresay.”
Casterman had, it transpired, indeed booked a cabin for the voyage to Europe. “But none of his possessions has been carried aboard. Oh — I believe there is one exception — it is an antiquity he purchased from me — but that will not be of any interest, I take it. You will be wanting his personal effects, papers and so forth, I expect.”
The man’s manner was very smooth and friendly; I supposed Casterman had purchased some trinket, a faience necklace or some such gee-gaw. Yet the account of Casterman as a dabbler in the antique somehow did not hold water.
And I suddenly recalled the tattered and grubby paper enclosed in the packet of letters that I had collected at the Consulate that very morning — letters three weeks old, addressed to me poste restante — for collection at Alexandria. La Egiziàna.
“The Egyptian what?” Belos’s letter had been impatient. Perhaps I was about to find out.
He tried in every way possible to keep us from going down to Casterman’s cabin. First politely, then barring our way, then I saw him opening his mouth as wide as a carp, probably as a preliminary to summoning help.
I had a simple answer. I seized him, twisted his brocaded silk-sleeved arm behind his back, and held a knife to his carotid. Nothing expensive, none of your damascened inlaid blades — just something very functional, which I held up before his eyes for a moment, so that he could see what it was. A common cooks knife, such as is used to slit throats.
“Hold your tongue.”
I lifted him off his feet and spun him around.
“Set your foot on the first tread of the steps down to the cabins. Now the second. Now we’ll follow you — and if you give me the slightest bother I’ll slit your artery and throw you down those steps.”
There were two cabins opening off the bottom of the steps down from the deck. He indicated the one on the right with a jerk of his head.
With my
arm still around his fat neck, I flung open the door.
The cabin was almost empty, save for one strange object.
I pulled my hostage back again through the door and flung him into the other cabin; with the sash of his robes I tied him to a bunk bed and thrust his satin kerchief into his mouth. “Don’t struggle — you’ll smother yourself. Charles, look after him for the moment, will you?” Charles willingly busied himself with the makeshift bonds.
Back to the other cabin.
And I feared I was too late. I had been a fool in not realising how malign Casterman was — and how determined were those he served. If there was a death on my hands it would not be that of Casterman, for I felt no guilt over him, but that of some poor innocent whom I was too late to defend from the cruelty and evil that the Casterman’s of this world can unleash — and which they will justify in the name of their damnable unholy naked greed.
The seconds that it took to fling myself across the passage between the cabins, to hurl myself into the right-hand cabin, knife in hand, seemed almost an eternity, as long as it took to build the Pyramids themselves, or as long as the time that had elapsed since the Sphinx was young. My movements seemed heavy, dragging — yet every second counted.
I dashed across to the object in the middle of Casterman’s cabin.
An Egyptian coffin, brilliant, exotic.
And tightly lashed round with ropes.
There was an old cutlass lying on a filthy bunk next to the coffin.
The girl was blinking up at me. In a moment I had slashed through the ropes and lifted her — for she could not stand — out of the depths of the coffin where she had been confined. She was pale and her eyes were glassy — she had probably been drugged to keep her quiet. And her wrists and ankles were fettered. She was still alive, for air holes had been contrived unobtrusively round the base of the coffin.
La Egiziàna! A slender Nubian; she was black and very beautiful, with blue tattoos on her cheeks.
*
She was still alive, thank God, and we were able to convey her safely to Cairo, where we took her on board the Zubeida and it was touching to see the affectionate reunion between Lilian and Rahaba, who was delighted to see the companion of her imprisonment safe and sound, for she had thought that Lilian was sure to perish in the epidemic from which she herself had been saved. A slave-girl was of course far too valuable a piece of property to risk in an outbreak of smallpox, for even if she were to survive, the inevitable pockmarked scarring would reduce her price to a fraction of her worth if she were unblemished goods.
At all events, they are both safe now. Ariadne and Charles are to take Rahaba south, back to Nubia when they sail for Aswan — she will return to her family there.
But how many other innocents have been sent to a life of hell and servitude on the other side of the world? How long will our government go on allowing rich planters to be slave-owners — because, after all, you cannot expect a true Briton to give up his property, even if that property be human flesh?
And as long as they are permitted to keep slaves, so long will there be an unlawful trade. For although it is too dangerous to supply huge numbers of men for agricultural labour in the cane-fields of Jamaica and Barbados, yet it is perfectly legal to own slaves there — perfectly legal to keep a woman as a whore even if she has to be kept chained up in the house of some rich planter. And they are rich, those plantation-owners — so rich they will pay sky-high prices for a woman house-slave whom they can use as they wish. Why, it is not illegal to own her, is it? Merely illegal to own slaves in England! But on Jamaica slavery is so necessary to the economy of the island that we dare not do away with it — and nor do the British judges dare order us to liberate our slaves, so much does that motherland depend on the flow of gold we deposit in her coffers. No, no sir, slavery is perfectly legal here in the West Indies! And I am the legal owner of this woman — why then, sir, how dare you assert that I have broken the law of the land! I am merely exerting my due right of possession!
For such a woman, a fortune could be paid. The rich planters of Kingston compete with each other to show off their slave-girls and if later on a man should cast a girl off when she is diseased or too dulled with beatings, well then, there are plenty of brothels in the West Indies to which she can be sold to end out her days, fettered if need be. Who would ask and who would care?
So the slave-trade continues, although you may say that it has taken on a different commercial aspect, for now it deals in small consignments of very valuable and high-quality merchandise ... that is how the slavers would see it. A beautiful girl, a virgin, of high birth and trained in the social graces ... such a woman would bring enough money to make the whole expedition worthwhile, like a rare and exotic animal brought back to exhibit in a fashionable menagerie.
Then and there, we worked out the details of Casterman’s scheme, aided by reluctant responses from Morino whom I was kicking at intervals. The girl was to be transported on board the Arabian Lady in the coffin — as I surmised, she would first have been drugged, to ensure her silence. Outwardly, a respectable gentleman would be shipping back an interesting antiquity, a piece to add to a collection, and a parcel of the ancient world that proved the refinement and curiosity of his taste. The coffin would be placed in Casterman’s cabin to await his pleasure.
Once they were at sea, the girl would be released. The crew would have been bought, and the coffin provided in advance with a false bill of shipping by Morino. La Egiziàna — it was in the feminine form in Italian! The Egyptian woman!
This document would have been sent by the fast steam-packet to Overbury in England, to warn him of what to expect and allow him to meet his most interesting import at the dockside.
Would there have been time for all this? Yes — Morino had the plan ready in advance, and sent the bill of shipment which that sad and courageous servant-girl had found at Westmorland Park. No doubt they had not at that time decided on a suitable victim, merely an appropriate means of smuggling. Thank God for the fast steam-packet, which had allowed Belos to get the tell-tale document to me in time!
Meantime, on board the Arabian Lady, Rahaba would be allowed the freedom of the cabin, until they were again in sight of land, when she would once more be forced into the hiding place, and when Casterman disembarked, the Egyptian coffin would accompany him, as a rarity which he was bringing home, and of which every possible care must be taken. It would travel with him to some safe place — such as a barred and shuttered room in a country house, somewhere not far from the coast and a port, somewhere where the servants had been dismissed so that there would be no gossip. Somewhere like Westmorland Park, for instance.
Then some means would be found to get the girl to the shore again and on board a ship for the West Indies — and then her fate would be sealed indeed.
Questions remained in my mind. Casterman was evidently but one link in a chain of hidden slave-dealers, who must stretch across the Atlantic, for payment must somehow be arranged at the other end of this chain. How deeply was Overbury involved? What was to be his role in the scheme?
He would be wary, no doubt about it. But I thought I had a way to smoke him out.
The Arabian Lady at last dropped anchor at Bristol docks and I glimpsed a tall figure on the quayside, pacing up and down as the gang-plank was slung out to the shore. The sailors bustled about the decks, furling sail, making all ship-shape, and if they were not the same captain and crew as that with which the ship had left Alexandria, there was nothing outward to show that new hands had been engaged shortly before she had sailed.
So anxious was Mr. Overbury to get aboard as soon as the gangplank dropped down that he rushed up on deck as immediately as it was possible.
“I must see the captain of this vessel straight away. There is a very important item which has been shipped for me from Alexandria — a most rare and fragile antiquity! My man of business, Casterman, should have it in his cabin. My name is Overbury, Mr. Micah Overbury of Westmorland
Park.”
He was so preoccupied with anxiety about his precious cargo that I think he did not observe a tall skinny-legged fellow in a tattered cloak who slipped past him on to the shore and stood for a few moments watching events from the shadowed doorway of a small tavern at the edge of the dock.
The captain emerged from his cabin. “Overbury, did you say? Well sir, I regret that Casterman was unable to take up his berth — but no cause for alarm, sir, Mr. Moroni got your shipment safely on board and he has arranged for everything to be taken care of as you would have wished.”
And here the captain nodded discreetly at Overbury, so that the latter understood his meaning and seemed to relax.
“You will be well rewarded, Captain, if you can get my property unloaded straight away — I have a coach waiting to take it to Westmorland Park. We can be there in a couple of hours.”
The captain showed no surprise at this feverish haste and called out command to half a dozen members of the crew, upon whom he laid many injunctions to fetch the old coffin standing in the first-class cabin.
“And they’ll be glad to get it off the ship, Mr. Overbury, for ’tis said a coffin means bad luck to any vessel that carries it, and it’s no good telling sailors that this one is but an ancient, empty old thing — they’re a superstitious species! Look careful there, you lubbers! The thing is most odoriferous! In a word, sir, it stinks!”
The coffin, which seemed quite absurdly bright-coloured against the slimy grey-brown timbered background of a British dockside, was swung out on ropes over the heads of the waiting men and then Overbury made a signal and a coach clattered on to the dock and drew up alongside. Gradually, with many shouts of “Steady there!” and “Gently, gently now” from the captain, and with Overbury fussing about as if he were organising the transport of a coffin made out of glass with a sleeping princess inside, the object was lowered on to the roof of the carriage and secured carefully with leather straps, which Overbury insisted on testing before he finally climbed inside and the horses moved off at a careful trot. So cautious was the pace that there would have been plenty of time for a fast horse, hired perhaps from livery stables close to the port, to get to his destination well ahead of him — assuming, of course, that the rider knew the road that the exotically laden coach would follow.