by M. M. Kaye
“I’m not surprised,” said Cholé acidly. “She’s never stopped warning and whining, and now she’s got a chance to say “I told you so!” and urge us all to throw ourselves on Majid’s mercy. Are you going to take her advice?”
“Never!” The reply came with a sudden, low-voiced violence that made the listening Salmé flinch. “If Méjé wants to go crawling to Majid she can. I shall do nothing to stop her. But if she goes it will be to plead for herself, not me!”
Poor Méjé, thought Salmé, trembling with a similar and sympathetic fear; how often had she begged them to be careful and warned them how this feud might end? For Méjé too loved Bargash above all her brothers, and it was her fear for him that had driven her to oppose this venture. We shall have to give in, thought Salmé, crouched shivering in the embrasure of the window. There is nothing else we can do, and Majid is generous…it mas generous of him to offer Bargash the chance to escape, and send him money to help him live in Oman. Perhaps he will be generous again, and forgive us…
Bargash’s voice, loud with anger, broke in upon her troubled thoughts as though in answer. “The rest of you can do as you like. But I myself will never surrender. Our plans are too far advanced and we are too strong. Nothing and no one will make me abandon them now: I mean to go through with it—and I shall win. You will see me Sultan of Zanzibar yet!”
A rush of admiration for this splendid, indomitable brother warmed Salmé, and some of her fear fell away from her. No wonder so many people were ready to follow him and to defy Majid for his sake. He was born to lead and to rule, and perhaps this was only a temporary set-back after all and he would rise above it She ceased to crouch against the side of the window and straightened up, holding herself as proudly erect as Cholé, and Bargash turned his head, and seeing her, called a greeting:
“Are you for me, little sister? Or do you, like Méjé, think that we should surrender all our hopes and sue for mercy?”
There was a ring of recklessness and excitement in his voice, and as he spoke the sun topped the horizon and shone full on his face, and Salmé saw that his cheeks were flushed and his eyes as glittering and bright as though he had a fever. The contagion of that fever leapt across the narrow gulf that gaped between them and fired her to a like excitement, and she forgot her fears and her sympathy for Méjé, and all at once her cheeks were as hot and her eyes as bright as her brother’s, and she laughed and waved her hands and cried: “Never! Never! We will fight them all!”
Bargash laughed back at her, and if there was a quality in his mirth that an older and more experienced person would have recognized as hysteria, Salmé certainly did not notice it. She heard Cholé from the adjacent window call out something that she did not quite catch, and saw Bargash smile and nod. And then the split-cane curtain fell back into place and he was gone.
The news had taken a little longer to travel the scant quarter of a mile that separated the American Consulate from Beit-el-Tani and the Heir-Apparent’s house, and it was past eight o’clock when the Consul said casually at the breakfast table, in the manner of one who merely notes the rumour of yet another change of Government in some Balkan State:
“Seems the Sultan’s gotten tired of his brother’s shenanigans at last And not before it was time. I’m told he sent a guard last night to surround Bargash’s house.”
Cressy, who had been helping herself to buttered eggs, dropped the spoon with a clatter that splashed yellow debris across the tablecloth and down the front of her pink muslin dress, and Hero said sharply: “Arrested? Do you mean that he has been thrown into prison?”
“Not quite that,” said her uncle, placidly eating a papaya. “Though I’m not saying it wouldn’t have been a better idea if they’d clapped him into the Fort and been done with it. A few months in a cell might cool him off some and give the rest of us a mite more peace and quiet around here. I’m free to confess that I don’t like the look of all those el Harth tribesmen who’ve been swarming over from the mainland to support him. They’re nothing but a wild, trigger-happy bunch who’d think nothing of shooting their old grandmothers if they reckoned there was any money in it. It’s a pity something wasn’t done about stopping them coming ashore in the first place. The sugar, please Cressy—”
Hero said urgently: “But what about the Prince, Uncle Nat? What did you mean by ‘Not quite’? Is he in prison or isn’t he?”
“Hard to say. Depends on how long they intend to keep him there; if they can do it at all! He’s under house arrest.”
“Oh, thank goodness!” said Cressy in explosive relief. “What a fright you gave me. Pa. I thought you meant he was in a dungeon or something.”
Hero directed a warning look at her young cousin and Clay said: “Blazes, Cressy, what’s there to get so excited about? What’s it got to do with you, anyway?”
Cressy caught Hero’s eye, blushed hotly and replied in some confusion that she wasn’t excited, and that if Clay had the least sensibility he would realize that anyone would be sorry to hear that anyone else had been put into a dungeon, even if anyone—
Hero hurriedly cut through this tangle of explanation by addressing herself in a firm voice to her uncle and enquiring if he meant that Prince Bargash was in fact a prisoner in his own house?
“That’s about the size of it,” agreed Uncle Nat. “There are armed guards all round it and the orders are that no one is to be allowed in or out until further notice. It’s created quite a stir in the town. Though I’ll bet it’s nothing to the stir it created inside that house when brother Bargash woke up in the small hours and found that he’d been out-manoeuvred for once! I reckon he must have been hopping mad. That was a good papaya, Mrs Hollis. One of ours?”
“No dear, from the fruit market I think. Cressy honey, do eat your breakfast before it gets cold.”
Cressy ignored the request and said anxiously. “But Pa, why? I mean, why has the Sultan acted like this? Didn’t he give any reason?”
“Half-a-dozen, I expect—you’ll allow he’s had plenty to choose from. But it’s no use asking me. All I know is what Abdul told me when I came downstairs this morning, and as every servant in the house seems to have the same story I guess it’s true. More coffee, please, dear.”
The subject appeared to be closed, and when Cressy attempted to reopen it she was frowned down by Hero, who began to talk animatedly of a projected barbecue, and kept the conversation there until breakfast was safely over and Uncle Nat and Clay had retired to the office. But no sooner had Aunt Abby departed to discuss menus with the cook than her daughter burst into agitated speech:
“How could you sit there talking calmly of barbecues. Hero? Can’t you see how terrible this is? It means…why it may mean that the Sultan has found out about everything! Cholé and Salmé and the gold bars and—Oh, what are we going to do?”
“Keep our heads,” said Hero crisply. “Really, Cressy, I could shake you! You are as bad as Olivia; wringing your hands and betraying the greatest alarm over any little set-back. Even if you cannot feel calm you should at least try to preserve an appearance of composure unless you wish to ruin everything.”
“You know I do not wish to do any such thing,” quavered poor Cressy. “But I am not calm and collected like you, and I cannot sit around planning parties when—when everything we had hoped for is endangered, and the poor Prince is under arrest and someone may have betrayed us all…you and I and Olivia and Thérèse too, and the treasure chests may have been found and—”
A sudden thought struck her and her hands flew to her mouth: “Hero! Do you suppose that was who it was? Do you suppose he told the Sultan?”
“Who are you talking about?” demanded Hero, perplexed.
“Captain Frost. You said that he knew—”
Rory Frost!…yes. Captain Frost knew, and he had said—what was it he had said?…‘otherwise I can see that I may have to deal with you myself, and that Miss Hollis, is likely to lead to a lot of unpleasantness.’ Was this what he had meant? Was this his way
of dealing with her and this the ‘unpleasantness’ he had threatened? All at once she was certain of it. She had got in his way by assisting to put the gold from Muscat into the hands of those it was intended for, and now he was getting his own back.
“Yes,” said Hero slowly. “That must be who it was. That—that despicable slaver. Well I’m certainly not going to be defeated by him, so he need not imagine he has won. He hasn’t and he won’t; I promise you that. You just leave it all to me—and to Thérèse.”
“And to Cholé,” said Cressy on a small sigh; adding with unexpected acumen: “Cholé is like you and Thérèse: strong, and not afraid of things. I wish I was like that, but I’m not. Do you think we should call at Beit-el-Tani this morning, just—just to see what has happened?”
“No, I don’t,” said Hero, considering the matter. “It would look too pointed and we don’t know yet if Cholé and the other girls are under arrest too. It wouldn’t do at all to arrive there and be turned back by a lot of soldiers. We must wait and see what Thérèse has to say. I feel sure she will hear all the news and lose no time over getting in touch with us, or seeing that Olivia does.”
Hero had not misjudged Madame Tissot. The morning was barely half spent when a cautiously worded missive from Olivia Credwell was delivered at the Consulate, begging the two Miss Hollises to take pity on her boredom and drink tea with her on the following day. She regretted that it could not be this afternoon, but circumstances made it inadvisable that they should meet any earlier, and she was sure they would understand and be discreet. Jane and Hubert, added Olivia, in a postscript black with underlining, would not be in, since they were engaged to go sailing with the Kealeys: “So we shall be a party of four, and quite private!”
They had, in point of fact, been a party of eight. And they had not taken tea at the Platts’ bungalow, but had been offered sherbert, Turkish coffee and little cakes in a house a mile outside the city and hidden behind a high wall and a garden full of fruit trees, to which they had been driven over execrable roads in Thérèse Tissot’s carriage.
The house was owned by one of the late Sultan Saïd’s numerous relatives by marriage; an obese old lady who found it impossible to move without the assistance of two strapping negro slave-girls to haul her to her feet or lower her on to a cushioned divan. But the three shrouded figures who rose to greet the foreign ladies turned out to be the Seyyida Salmé, her niece Farschu, and an unidentified and elderly cousin who appeared to be acting as chaperone and lady’s maid.
“Cholé could not come, so she sent me instead,” explained Salmé when the greetings, questions and expressions of sympathy were over, the refreshments brought and the slaves dismissed.—” She said that you would wish to have news of us.”
Salmé did not consider it necessary to explain that what Cholé had actually said was: “You had better tell those silly women that we at Beit-el-Tani are safe, and that they must say nothing of the chests, but keep silent and not lose their heads and talk to their menfolk. Two of them have heads as empty as dry gourds, but the American woman who looks like a boy has intelligence of a sort, and the French woman is as cunning as a mongoose. Tell them everything and see if we can make use of them.”
“We others,” continued Salmé, “have not been molested, and no one has attempted to prevent anyone from leaving or entering our houses. Though of course we could not be seen going out at this time of day, so Cholé made us borrow some of the servants’ clothes as a disguise, and go out unattended by the slaves’ door so that we should not be recognized or followed. It is only Bargash’s house that is besieged, and the soldiers will allow no one to go in or out of it.”
“But you have spoken to him, no?” said Thérèse, not as if she were putting a question but as though anything else was unthinkable.
“Yes,” said Salmé eagerly. “Through the windows. They cannot prevent us from doing that, and I do not think they know. It is quite safe, and our brother has been able to send messages by us to the chiefs who are supporting him. He is determined not to make submission to Majid, for he says that there is such a large stock of food in the house that he can hold out for weeks, and that Majid will soon get tired of keeping a great many soldiers occupied all day and all night standing about doing nothing. Of course it is a pity that Méjé and her women are there, for several of the chiefs were trapped in the house when it was surrounded and they cannot move about freely because of her, but must keep to one room on the ground floor, which cannot be comfortable for them. But fortunately the most influential one did not go to the house that night, and we are keeping him in touch with Bargash and giving him money and jewels so that he can buy more support for us.”
Thérèse said curtly: “That will be of little use if the house that was the headquarters of the movement is surrounded by the Sultan’s guards. They will have to find another meeting place; a safer one.”
“We too have thought of that,” replied Salmé with a faint touch of hauteur that recalled her half-sister. “The estate that is called Marseilles which belongs to Farschu here, and her sisters, is now to be our new headquarters. Bargash has directed that all our followers shall collect there, and that it shall be well stocked with food and fuel and water and anything else we may need. The house is already like a fortress and he thinks it could easily hold several hundred men. And be held, if need be, against a thousand.”
Thérèse made no immediate comment and for a minute or two the others were silent, watching her. Then she gave a small brisk nod and said: “Bon! It will do very well. In fact much, much better, and had we arranged this arrest ourselves we could not have improved upon it, since the old plan was always dangerous. Your brother’s house was too public a meeting place—I have said so a thousand times. Marseilles is far better. And now that the Sultan has placed guards around your brother’s house, he and his army and his police will think themselves safe and occupy themselves only with watching it, like a cat who sits before the wrong mousehole. But while they do so you will have to work fast. Your brother Bargash is right to remain where he is and not to come out and surrender himself, for it will give you time to complete all the arrangements. Tell him that the longer he stays there and keeps the Sultan and his ministers occupied with watching him, the more those who are not watched can accomplish. And when all is prepared we shall think of some way to obtain his release. He has food in plenty, you say?”
“Enough for many days,” confirmed Salmé. “But there is little water, and it will not last.”
“No water!” gasped Olivia. “You mean they have no well? But that is terrible! What can they have been thinking of to overlook such a precaution? And m this weather too.”
“They did not overlook it,” retorted Salmé, irritated. “But they had not expected Majid to strike in this manner, and because of the heat they are already finding that such water as they kept is fit only for cooking and washing, and not for drinking. We do not know what to do about that, and if we cannot find a way to send water to them they will be forced to surrender—and very soon.”
“Oh no!” cried Olivia and Cressy in distracted chorus.
“Of course we shall find a way,” said Hero bracingly. “If you can speak to your brother it must mean that the windows of your houses are near enough for you to be able to pass something across on a rope or a stick. Could you not tie bottles of water on to poles and pass them across?”
Salmé shook her head. “There are a great many people in my brother’s house. Not only he and his friends and advisers, but the chiefs who had been to see them that night, and their attendants too, and little Abd-il-Aziz and his tutor and Méjé and her women, and many, many servants and slaves. How could we send enough water for all these people in bottles tied to sticks? It could only be done after dark, or we should be seen; and it would soon be stopped. We could not give even half of them enough water in the time.”
“But it would be better than nothing,” urged Olivia hopefully. “You could use buckets, and No, I suppose tha
t would be too difficult. They’d be too heavy to tie to sticks, and they’d tip over and splash and the soldiers would hear. And worse on ropes, because—”
Hero said: “Be quiet, Olivia: I want to think.”
The women watched her in silence, as they had watched Thérèse, and presently she said decisively: “Yes, I guess that will do. It won’t be too difficult and it should work. Let me explain…”
She did so in some detail, and Salmé and her niece and the elderly cousin listened, nodded and agreed while their hostess wheezed and clucked and chuckled among her cushions like a stout brown hen.
They had left shortly afterwards; the four foreign women in Madame Tissot’s carriage, and Salmé and her companions on foot And on the following night, in the dark hour before moonrise, a silk thread tied to a small lead weight had been tossed across the street from Chole’s window to one a storey below in the opposite house, where it had been caught and wound in by Bargash.
The thread had been fastened to a string which had in turn been attached to a wide, flexible tube of waxed canvas—the manufacturing of which had occupied the greater part of the day and caused some sorely pricked fingers. The whole operation had been performed in commendable silence, and the chattering soldiers whose backs were clearly visible in the lamplight at the far end of the lane, never turned their heads. Not even when the canvas bulged and sagged under the weight of water poured down it by more than two dozen excited women who formed a chain and passed heavy earthenware jars from hand to hand, emptying and refilling them for the space of an hour.
By the time the moon rose and peered into the black gully between the houses, the canvas tube was safely back in Beit-el-Tani, and the Heir-Apparent’s household provided with sufficient fresh water to last them through another day. And should any inquisitive person have thought to walk down the barricaded lane, they would have found nothing more suspicious than a few damp patches caused by falling drops, which heat and the night wind obliterated long before morning.