“He’s a confounded brute – that I know. I feel sure of it,” her companion declared hastily. “But look here, mam’zelle, can’t I assist you? Can’t I help you out of this pitfall into which you seem to have fallen. Why should you be forced to marry this man whom your uncle has chosen – whoever he may be?”
She shook her head mournfully, her lips quite white.
“No,” she sighed. “I fear your efforts could have no avail. It is true that I am betrothed – pledged to a man whom I hate. But I know that I cannot escape. I must obey the decree which has gone forth. Few girls to-day marry for love, I fear – and true love, alas! seems ever to bring poverty in its wake.”
“That’s the old sentimental way of looking at it,” he declared. “There’s many a rich marriage in which Cupid plays the principal part. I’ve known lots.”
“In my case it cannot be,” the girl declared hopelessly. “My future has been planned for me, and admits of no alteration,” she went on. “To me, love – the true love of a woman towards a man – is forbidden. My only thought is to crush it completely from my heart and to meet my future husband as I would a dire misfortune.”
“Not a very cheerful outlook, I fear.”
“No, my future can, alas! be only one of tragedy, M’sieur Waldron, so the less we discuss it the better. It is, I assure you, a very painful subject,” and again she sighed heavily, and he saw hot tears welling in those splendid eyes which he always admired so profoundly.
Her face was full of black tragedy, and as Waldron gazed upon it his heart went out in deepest sympathy towards her.
“But surely this uncle of yours is not such an absolute brute as to compel you to wed against your will!” he cried.
“Not he alone compels me. There are other interests,” was her slow reply, her voice thick with suppressed emotion. “I am bound, fettered, hand and foot. Ah! you do not know!” she cried.
“Cannot I assist you to break these fetters?” he asked, bending to her earnestly. “I see that you are suffering, and if I can do anything to serve your interests I assure you, mademoiselle, I will.”
“I feel certain of that,” was her answer. “Already you have been very good and patient with me. I know I have often sorely tried your temper. But you must forgive me. It is my nature, I fear, to be mischievous and irresponsible.”
At that instant the recollection of the night in Assouan crossed Waldron’s mind – of that mysterious messenger who had come post-haste from Europe, and had as mysteriously returned. He had never mentioned the affair, for had he done so she would have known that he had spied upon her. Therefore he had remained silent.
They stood together beneath the shade of that spreading tree with the heat of the desert sand reflected into their faces – stood in silence, neither speaking.
At last he said:
“And may I not know the identity of the man who is marked out to be your husband?”
“No; that is a secret, M’sieur Waldron, which even you must not know. It is my affair, and mine alone,” she replied in a low tone.
“I’m naturally most curious,” he declared, “for if I can assist you to extricate yourself from this impasse I will.”
“I thank you most sincerely,” was her quick response, as she looked up at him with her soft, big eyes. “If at any time I require your assistance I will certainly count upon you. But, alas! I fear that no effort on your part could avail me. There are reasons – reasons beyond my control – which make it imperative that I should marry the man marked out for me.”
“It’s a shame – a downright sin!” he cried fiercely. “No, mademoiselle,” and he grasped her small hand before she could withdraw it; “I will not allow you to sacrifice yourself to your uncle’s whim.”
She shook her head slowly, answering:
“It is, alas! not within your power to prevent it! The matter has already been arranged.”
“Then you are actually betrothed?”
“Yes,” she replied in a hoarse voice. “To a man I hate.”
“Then you must let me act on your behalf. I must – I will?”
“No. You can do nothing to help me. As I have already explained, my life in future can only be one of tragedy – just as yours may be, I fear,” she added in a slow, distinct voice.
“I hardly follow you,” he exclaimed, looking at her much puzzled.
She smiled sadly, turning her big eyes upon his.
“Probably not,” she said. “But does not half Madrid know the tragedy of your love for the dancer, Beatriz Rojas de Ruata, the beautiful woman whose misfortune it is to have a husband in the person of a drunken cab-driver.”
“What!” he gasped, starting and staring at her in amazement. “Then you know Madrid?”
“Yes, I have been in Madrid,” was her answer. “And I have heard in the salons of your mad infatuation for the beautiful opera-dancer. It is common gossip, and most people sigh and sympathise with you, for it is known, too, that Hubert Waldron, of the British Embassy, is the soul of honour – and that such love as his can only bring tragedy in its train.”
“You never told me that you had been in Madrid!”
“Because you have never asked me,” was her calm reply. “But I know much more concerning you, M’sieur Waldron, than you believe,” she said with a mysterious smile. Then, her eyes glowing, she added: “I have heard you discussed in Madrid, in Barcelona, and in San Sebastian, and I know that your love for the beautiful Beatriz Rojas de Ruata is just as fraught with tragedy as the inexorable decree which may, ere long, bind me as wife to the one man whom I hate and detest most in all the world!”
Chapter Five.
A Surprise
Egypt is the strangest land, the weirdest land, the saddest land in all the world.
It is a land of memories, of monuments, and of mysticism; a land of dreams that never come true, a land of mystery, a great cemetery stretching from ancient Ethiopia away to the sea, a great grave hundreds of miles long in which is buried perhaps as many millions of human beings as exist upon our earth to-day.
Against the low-lying shore of the great Nile valley have beaten many of the greatest waves of human history. It is the grave of a hundred dead Egypts, old and forgotten Egypts, that existed and possessed kings and priests and rules and creeds, and died and were succeeded by newer Egypts that now, too, are dead, that in their time believed they reared permanently above the ruins of the past.
The small white steamer lay moored in the evening light at the long stone quay before the sun-baked town of Wady Haifa, close to the modern European railway terminus of the long desert-line to Khartoum.
On board, dinner was in progress in the cramped little saloon, no larger than that of a good-sized yacht, and everyone was in high spirits, for the Second Cataract, a thousand miles from Cairo, had at last been reached.
Amid the cosmopolitan chatter in French, English, Italian and German, Boulos, arrayed in pale pink silk – for the dragoman is ever a chameleon in the colour of his perfumed robes – made his appearance and clapped his hands as signal for silence.
“La-dees and gen’lemens,” he cried in his long-drawn-out Arab intonation, “we haf arrived now in Wady Haifa, ze frontier of Sudan. Wady Haifa in ze days of ze khalifa was built of Nile mud, and one of ze strongholds of ze Dervishes. Ze Engleesh Lord Kig’ner, he make Wady Haifa hees headquarter and make one railroad to Khartoum. After ze war zis place he be rebuilt by Engleesh engineer, as to-morrow you will see. After dinner ze Engleesh custom officer he come on board to search for arms or ammunition, for no sporting rifle be allowed in ze Sudan without ze licence, which he cost fifty poun’ sterling. To-morrow I go ashor wiz