At that moment the native servant to whom the Consul-General had given the note came up and gave it to Gordon, who read it and then handed it to Helena. It ran —
"Come to me immediately. Have something to say to you. – N."
"We'll drive you to the Agency in the car," said Helena, and they moved away together.
In a crowded lane at the back of the pavilion people were clamouring for their carriages and complaining of the idleness and even rudeness of the Arab runners, but Helena's automobile was brought up instantly, and when it was moving off, with the General inside, Helena at the wheel, and Gordon by her side, the natives touched their foreheads to the Colonel and said, "Bismillah!"
As soon as the car was clear away, and Gordon was alone with Helena for the first time, there was one of those privateering passages of love between them which lovers know how to smuggle through even in public and the eye of day.
"Well!"
"Well!"
"Everybody has been saying the sweetest things to me and you've never yet uttered a word."
"Did you really expect me to speak – there – before all those people? But it was splendid, glorious, magnificent!" And then, the steering-wheel notwithstanding, her gauntletted left hand went down to where his right hand was waiting for it.
Crossing the iron bridge over the river, they drew up at the British Agency, a large, ponderous, uninspired edifice, with its ambuscaded back to the city and its defiant front to the Nile, and there, as Gordon got down, the General, who still looked hot and excited, said —
"You'll dine with us to-night, my boy – usual hour, you know?"
"With pleasure, sir," said Gordon, and then Helena leaned over and whispered —
"May I guess what your father is going to talk about?"
"The demonstration?"
"Oh no!"
"What then?"
"The new prophet at Alexandria."
"I wonder," said Gordon, and with a wave of the hand he disappeared behind a screen of purple blossom, as Helena and the General faced home.
Their way lay up through the old city, where groups of aggressive young students, at sight of the General's gold-laced cap, started afresh the Kentish fire of their "Long live Egypt," up and up until they reached the threatening old fortress on the spur of the Mokattani Hills, and then through the iron-clamped gates to the wide courtyard where the mosque of Mohammed Ali, with its spikey minarets, stands on the edge of the ramparts like a cock getting ready to crow, and drew up at the gate of a heavy-lidded house which looks sleepily down on the city, the sinuous Nile, the sweeping desert, the preponderating Pyramids, and the last saluting of the sun. Then as Helena rose from her seat she saw that the General's head had fallen back and his face was scarlet.
"Father, you are ill."
"Only a little faint – I'll be better presently."
But he stumbled in stepping out of the car, and Helena said —
"You are ill, and you must go to bed immediately, and let me put Gordon off until to-morrow."
"No, let him come. I want to hear what the Consul-General had to say to him."
In spite of himself he had to go to bed, though, and half-an-hour later, having given him a sedative, Helena was saying —
"You've over-excited yourself again, Father. You were anxious about Gordon when his horse fell and those abominable spears were flying about."
"Not a bit of it. I knew he would come out all right. The fighting devil isn't civilised out of the British blood yet, thank God! But those Egyptians at the end – the ingrates, the dastards!"
"Father!"
"Oh, I am calm enough now – don't be afraid, girl. I was sorry to hear Gordon standing up for them, though. A soldier every inch of him, but how unlike his father! Never saw father and son so different. Yet so much alike too! Fighting men both of them, Hope to goodness they'll never come to grips. Heavens! that would be a bad day for all of us."
And then drowsily, under the influence of the medicine —
"I wonder what Nuneham wanted with Gordon! Something about those graceless tarbooshes, I suppose. He'll make them smart for what they've done to-day. Wonderful man, Nuneham! Wonderful!"
CHAPTER III
John Nuneham was the elder son of a financier of whose earlier life little or nothing was ever learned. What was known of his later life was that he had amassed a fortune by colonial speculation, bought a London newspaper, and been made a baronet for services to his political party. Having no inclination towards journalism the son became a soldier, rose quickly to the rank of Brevet-Major, served several years with his regiment abroad, and at six-and-twenty went to India as Private Secretary to the Viceroy, who, quickly recognising his natural tendency, transferred him to the administrative side and put him on the financial staff. There he spent five years with conspicuous success, obtaining rapid promotion, and being frequently mentioned in the Viceroy's reports to the Foreign Minister.
Then his father died, without leaving a will, as the cable of the solicitors informed him, and he returned to administer the estate. Here a thunderbolt fell on him, for he found a younger brother, with whom he had nothing in common and had never lived at peace, preparing to dispute his right to his father's title and fortune on the assumption that he was illegitimate, that is to say, was born before the date of the marriage of his parents.
The allegation proved to be only too well founded, and as soon as the elder brother had recovered from the shock of the truth, he appealed to the younger one to leave things as they found them.
"After all, a man's eldest son is his eldest son – let matters rest," he urged; but his brother was obdurate. "Nobody knows what the circumstances may have been – is there no ground of agreement?" but his brother could see none.
"You can take the inheritance, if that's what you want, but let me find a way to keep the title so as to save the family and avoid scandal"; but his brother was unyielding.
"For our father's sake – it is not for a man's sons to rake up the dead past of his forgotten life"; but the younger brother could not be stirred.
"For our mother's sake – nobody wants his mother's good name to be smirched, least of all when she's in her grave"; but the younger brother remained unmoved.
"I promise never to marry. The title shall end with me. It shall return to you or to your children"; but the younger brother would not listen.
"England is the only Christian country in the world in which a man's son is not always his son – for God's sake let me keep my father's name?"
"It is mine, and mine alone," said the younger brother, and then a heavy and solitary tear, the last he was to shed for forty years, dropped slowly down John Nuneham's hard-drawn face, for at that instant the well of his heart ran dry.
"As you will," he said. "But if it is your pride that is doing this I shall humble it, and if it is your greed I shall live long enough to make it ashamed."
From that day forward he dedicated his life to one object only, the founding of a family that should far eclipse the family of his brother, and his first step towards that end was to drop his father's surname in the register of his regiment and assume his mother's name of Lord.
At that moment England with two other European Powers had, like Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, entered the fiery furnace of Egyptian affairs, though not so much to withstand as to protect the worship of the golden image. A line of Khedives, each seeking his own advantage, had culminated in one more unscrupulous and tyrannical than the rest, who had seized the lands of the people, borrowed money upon them in Europe, wasted it in wicked personal extravagance, as well as in reckless imperial expenditure that had not yet had time to yield a return, and thus brought the country to the brink of ruin, with the result that England was left alone at last to occupy Egypt, much as Rome occupied Palestine,