This eBook was produced by David Widger
By Gilbert Parker
It was as though she had gone to sleep the night before, and wakedagain upon this scene unchanged, brilliant, full of colour, a chaos ofdecoration—confluences of noisy, garish streams of life, eddies of pettylabour. Craftsmen crowded one upon the other in dark bazaars; merchantschattered and haggled on their benches; hawkers clattered and cried theirwares. It was a people that lived upon the streets, for all the housesseemed empty and forsaken. The sais ran before the Pasha's carriage, thedonkey-boys shrieked for their right of way, a train of camels calmlyforced its passage through the swirling crowds, supercilious and heavy-laden.
It seemed but yesterday since she had watched with amused eyes thesherbet-sellers clanking their brass saucers, the carriers streaming thewater from the bulging goatskins into the earthen bottles, crying, "Allahbe praised, here is coolness for thy throat for ever!" the idle singerchanting to the soft kanoon, the chess-players in the shade of a highwall, lost to the world, the dancing-girls with unveiled, shamelessfaces, posturing for evil eyes. Nothing had changed these past sixyears. Yet everything had changed.
She saw it all as in a dream, for her mind had no time for reverie orretrospect; it was set on one thing only.
Yet behind the one idea possessing her there was a subconscious selftaking note of all these sights and sounds, and bringing moisture to hereyes. Passing the house which David had occupied on that night when heand she and Nahoum and Mizraim had met, the mist of feeling almostblinded her; for there at the gate sat the bowab who had admitted herthen, and with apathetic eyes had watched her go, in the hour when itseemed that she and David Claridge had bidden farewell for ever, twodriftwood spars that touched and parted in the everlasting sea. Hereagain in the Palace square were Kaid's Nubians in their glittering armouras of silver and gold, drawn up as she had seen them drawn then, to bereviewed by their overlord.
She swept swiftly through the streets and bazaars on her mission toNahoum. "Lady Eglington" had asked for an interview, and Nahoum hadgranted it without delay. He did not associate her with the girl forwhom David Claridge had killed Foorgat Pey, and he sent his own carriageto bring her to the Palace. No time had been lost, for it was less thantwenty-four hours since she had arrived in Cairo, and very soon she wouldknow the worst or the best. She had put her past away for the moment,and the Duchess of Snowdon had found at Marseilles a silent, determined,yet gentle-tongued woman, who refused to look back, or to discussanything vital to herself and Eglington, until what she had come to Egyptto do was accomplished. Nor would she speak of the future, until thepresent had been fully declared and she knew the fate of David Claridge.In Cairo there were only varying rumours: that he was still holding out;that he was lost; that he had broken through; that he was a prisoner—allwithout foundation upon which she could rely.
As she neared the Palace entrance, a female fortune-teller ran forward,thrusting towards her a gazelle's skin, filled with the instruments ofher mystic craft, and crying out: "I divine-I reveal! What is present Imanifest! What is absent I declare! What is future I show! Beautif