Terence O'Rourke/Part 2/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
THE GODDESS OF EGYPTIAN NIGHT
It was Danny who was frowning uneasily over the rather extensive consignment of wearing apparel which had just been delivered to Colonel O'Rourke upon that gentleman's order.
O'Rourke himself was standing with his hands in his pockets, indifferently whistling the while he gazed out of the window of his room in Shepheard's—a rather inferior room, giving upon the hotel's courtyard, wherein the rays of the Egyptian sun struck down like brickbats, driving all living things to, shelter, with the exception of one solitary and disconsolate crane, tame and depressed, whose shadow lay like a pool of ink upon the flags.
The adventurer turned impatiently from staring at the bird, to inquire if Danny had not yet. bestirred himself to finish the unpacking of the new clothes, which their owner desired to try on. The master caught the dubious smile on the man's lips, and the whistling stopped short.
Danny's uneasiness was a thing apparent, not to be overlooked—as the man had intended it should be; it was as near as he dared to an expression of disapproval of O'Rourke's judgment. For the rest, whatever his thoughts, Danny was keeping them to himself, with his tongue between his teeth—and that very prudently.
But, as for O'Rourke, a difference of opinion, even between master and man, was a thing to be settled promptly; and he went for Danny, speaking straight from the shoulder.
"For what are ye standing there grinning, like the red-headed gossoon ye are?" he cried. "What's on your mind—if ye've the impudence to boast such a thing, Danny?"
"Sure, now, sor," protested the red-headed one, "I was only thinkin' that there do be a terrible lot of thim clothes. Wouldn't they be costing a likely pot av money, now, sor?"
"True for ye, Danny; they would," complacently made answer O'Rourke, admiring in his mirror the effect of a new white pith helmet with several yards of beautiful green mosquito netting patriotically draped around and hanging down the back of it.
"That is," he amended, putting it aside in order to assume a fresh suit of immaculate white duck, "they would be expensive if me tailor's name did not happen to be O'Flaherty—a friend of me own, and, be that same token, glad of the chance to extend long credit to any son of the old country. Besides," he concluded, "what business is that of yours?"
O'Rourke sat him down on the edge of the bed and rammed his long legs into the trousers of a new suit of evening clothes; then he stood up and took joy because of their impeccable set, and the crease down the center of each leg as sharp as though it were sewn in place.
"Besides—" he added. "Hand me those suspenders, ye omadhaun, and don't stand staring as if ye never before saw dacint clothes on the back of a handsome man like meself! Besides, who's worrying about money?"
Danny hastened to disclaim any such reprehensible anxiety; but O'Rourke cut sharply into the man's excuses. "Danny," he asked severely, "now, how much was there in the treasury when we left Alexandria?"
"Wan hoondred an' foive pounds," without hesitation replied Daniel. "An'—an', askin' yer honor's pardon, sor—"
"Go on! Out with it, man!"
"How long will that be lastin', what with livin' six wakes at the foinest hotel in Cairo, yer honor, sor, an' two such batches av clothes already, sor?"
"Danny," said O'Rourke, "ye weary me inexpressibly. Give me the white trousies yonder, and likewise the old ones."
O'Rourke took his discarded trousers, ran his hand into the pockets, and produced, first a handful of gold and baser coin, which contemptuously he threw upon the bedspread, in turn exhibiting to Danny's astonished eyes an impressive roll of Bank of England notes.
"There!" complacently he exclaimed. "And what will ye find to say to that, now, I wonder?"
With his master's good humor, Danny's confidence returned; he grew emboldened, eying the money wistfully. "Not much to say," he conceded, "while ye're lookin', sor. But if yer honor will turn yer back for the laste parrt av a momint, 'tis meself that'll endeavor to hold converse wid th' roll."
"Umm," agreed O'Rourke. "I misdoubt ye've told the truth for the first time in your life, Danny."
Composedly he arrayed himself in the white duck suit, choosing and arranging his cravat with exquisite care. Presently he was satisfied. He turned and took possession of the scattered money, at the last moment flipping a sovereign to his servant.
"Take that," he said. "Be thankful, do not get immoderately drunk, and learn to trust your fortunes to the O'Rourke."
"But, sor," gasped the man, bewildered, "an' how did ye come by it all, sor, manin' no onrespect to yer honor?"
O 'Rourke smiled retrospectively. "The Italian gentleman who banks for the miniature Monte Carlo downstairs gave it to me last night," he returned, "as a tribute to me skill in picking the numbers on the wheel of fortune. He's hoping to see more of me."
"An' will ye be tryin' the roulette again, sor?"
"Divvle a bit," proclaimed O'Rourke impatiently. "Did I not tell ye to trust your fortunes with the O'Rourke, just now? Faith, for why should I be taking all this back to the man when I need it meself, ye lazy scut? Hand me me helmet; the O'Rourke is going to give the fair Cairenes a treat, Danny."
A moment later, when he stepped out upon the terrace in front of Shepheard's, his distinguished appearance caused a youthful American to point him out to his companions. "That's Donahue Pasha," he said; "the man who escaped from Omdurman—"
But O'Rourke did not hear the misstatement. He stood for a moment, casting about with his keen eyes as though for some friend in the throng about the tables. Apparently he did not find whom he sought.
"She's not here to-day," he admitted at length, reluctantly, walking to the edge of the terrace and seating himself at one of the tables overlooking the street. "Faith," he continued, with an inward grin, "if she only knew what she was missing, now—!"
He lit a cigar and sat puffing, looking out over the brilliant passing parade; as he watched, the tenor of his thoughts caused his eyes to lose their humorous light, and he began to chew nervously at the end of the cigar—in O'Rourke a sign that the man's mind was not at rest.
"Something must happen, before long," he was thinking. "Faith, 'tis impossible that things should go on this way, or me friend Satan will be cooking up some mischief for me idle hands—that's fair warning for ye, O'Rourke! … I can't," he went on, "keep hitting the wheel. 'Tis meself that has a presintiment that me luck's about to change; and, sure, I've been phenomenally fortunate these last few weeks. I can't sit forever waiting for Doone Pasha to find me a place in the Khedival army. And 'tis against nature that I should be under the fire of madame's eyes much longer without taking me fate in me hands and—raising trouble for meself.
"For the matter of that," he concluded, "'tis time I was on the wing. Me nest gets uncomfortable if I rest in it overlong. I've been here three weeks be the clock. Can I stand it much longer?"
A burst of laughter from a party at a neighboring table changed the current of his meditations.
"There's gaiety for ye!" he commented. "What does all this mean, can ye tell me? When has Shepheard's been so crowded in the middle of the hot months, as now? For why is everybody lingering in Cairo, if 'tis not for to see something drop? I wonder, now, if there's diplomatic troubles in the air? Will France and Turkey be making a little roughhouse for England presently? Is that it? I've heard no word to that effect—nor to the contrary, for that matter. Is there to be a war, and meself not invited?"
He turned to survey the crowd with a speculative eye. But no, he concluded; it seemed no more than the usual gathering of Shepheard's guests—the ordinary aggregation of tourists, with a sprinkling of residents and native Egyptians, and a fair leavening of red-faced, pompous young subalterns of the Army of Occupation.
It was the fag end of an afternoon, painfully hot. Above O'Rourke's head a palm was stirring languidly in the least suspicion of a breeze that made life endurable on Shepheard's terrace. But in the street beyond only the camels seemed at ease.
At this season of the year Cairo is generally deserted by every soul who can get away—at least as far as to Alexandria, where the Mediterranean breezes are to be counted upon to temper the summer heat.
But still, the facts were undeniable; within his memory, O'Rourke had never seen the place so animated, even at the height of the winter tourist season, as now it was.
He swung around again to his cigar and his sherbet, shaking his head in wonderment. "Something's afoot," he muttered, "and the O'Rourke's an outsider!"
A bit later a carriage dashed up to the front of the hotel—a very handsome landau, evidently fresh from the afternoon parade on the Gizereh Drive.
As it stopped almost directly opposite O'Rourke, the man stiffened to a rigidity almost military—head up, shoulders back, eyes straight in front of him, and apparently seeing nothing at all. At the same time a slow flush mounted his lean, brown cheeks, till he had colored to the eyes.
"I will not look at her!" he was saying over and over to himself. "I will not look—'tis as much as me soul is worth!"
Nevertheless, look he did—as though, in fact, his gaze was drawn whether he would or no.
A woman was alighting from the carriage—undoubtedly a very wonderful woman, worthy to rouse even the O'Rourke to an appreciation of her loveliness—O'Rourke, who had seen many beautiful women in his time, and found them all good to look upon.
She was, for one thing, exquisitely gowned, although that was no more than in keeping with her superb grace of carriage; and though it all was forgotten when one—especially such an impressionable one as O'Rourke—looked upon her face.
She was very pale and very dark. "A goddess of Egyptian night," the Irishman had lightly termed her, at first sight. Her hair was of the blackness of jet, and of its high luster. And as for her eyes, to O'Rourke they were like nothing in the world but the soft, warm depths of the star-strewn Mediterranean—infinitely beautiful, infinitely dark, infinitely tempting. They drew his gaze as with a magnetic attraction; he looked, looked deep, and for the moment forgot—forgot Cairo, Shepheard's, Egypt—forgot even another woman beyond the seas to whom his troth was plighted, for whom he wandered in strange lands seeking his fugitive fortunes.
And then, in a moment, she was looking away, with her chin held a trifle higher, a bit more disdainfully than her wont, and, as she swept up the steps to the terrace, O'Rourke told himself that she colored faintly under her wonderful pallor—though, he admitted fairly, it might have been his own conceit that made him so fancy.
There followed her a man—a tall, clean-limbed young Egyptian, wearing the clothes of modern civilization and the inevitable tarboosh, bearing himself with some distinction of manner. But him O'Rourke honored with scarcely a glance. He was thinking only of the marvelous beauty of the woman, and, "Faith," he pondered, sighing, "there's the excuse for me, now!"
But who was she? The problem tormented the man; nor could all his inquiries about the hotel gain him an answer. Liberal bakshish distributed among the servants told him no more than already he knew—that she was accustomed to come to Shepheard's every evening, to dine there in the company of her Egyptian escort. Who either happened to be and whence they came, was a mystery apparently unsolvable.
For his own part, O'Rourke was now determined that the mystery should be probed. Hitherto he had hesitated; though always her eyes had sought his, and though always in their depth he had read something—an interest, a faint recognition—never until this day had she so compelled his gaze to hers, so given him a glimpse of her own soul through its windows.
"Sure," swore the Irishman, "'tis more than mortal man can stand—'tis beyond endurance, beyond the limits of dacint flirtation—that look she gave me. I'll know her before another sun sets!"
To-day's was setting now; presently it would be night. O'Rourke bowed his head over his meditative cigar, deliberating ways and means to reach his end. The life on Shepheard's terrace quickened with the promise of the night's coolness; in the street the traffic moved at a more lively pace. And, presently, out of the gathering gloom, with a skirling of bagpipes and the clatter of side-arms, came marching a regiment of anomalies—kilted Scotchmen, bare knees moving to and fro in rhythmic regularity, in Egypt!—the Cameron Highlanders of the Army of Occupation.