Chapter XI: A Diplomatic Incident

When the people of the house discovered the identity of their uninvited guests, the welcome which they offered them was the reverse of warm. All Azim Bey’s threats and promises could not induce them to allow him and his attendants to remain in the shelter of the courtyard until a messenger could be despatched to the Palace and return with a military escort; indeed they could scarcely be restrained from thrusting them out again to the mob, who were clamouring at the gate. It was some time before largely increased offers could win them over to consent to a compromise, namely, to let the whole party out by a back door leading into an unfrequented street, from which, through many twists and turnings, the Palace might be reached.

“But we cannot all go together,” said Azim Bey, “or they will recognise us again. We must separate.”

“Never!” cried Cecil, resolutely.

“Oh, you and I will keep together, mademoiselle. What I mean is, that we must not leave the house again as a large party. The two nurses will mount our donkeys and go with the servants. You and I will depart by ourselves.”

“Not unless you are disguised,” said Cecil. “For you to go in that dress would simply be to let yourself be murdered.”

“The disguise will not be difficult,” he cried, tearing off his long black coat and unbuckling his little sword. “Now if the good people of this house will give us in exchange for these an old _abba_ and _kaffiyeh_, I shall be unrecognisable. As for you, mademoiselle, no one could know you. You look just like any Baghdadi lady in a sheet and yellow slippers.”

The owners of the house could not resist the advantageous offer made them, and Cecil, seeing in the bold stroke proposed their only chance, allowed it to be accepted. A ragged old cloak, with the orthodox brown and white stripes, and a torn head-handkerchief, fastened round the brow by a rope of twisted wool, which kept it well down over the face, made Azim Bey a most realistic-looking little Arab, and Cecil felt that it was very unlikely that he would be recognised in his disguise. The mob in front of the house had become quieter by this time, and old Ayesha, the Bey’s nurse, proposed that she and her fellow-servants should leave the house by the front door a few minutes after he and Cecil had stolen out at the back, thus leading the crowd to believe that the two most important members of the party were still within. Cecil objected to this as sending the servants into unnecessary danger, but Um Yusuf assured her that without herself and the Bey they would in all probability be able to pass through the streets in safety, and she allowed herself to be overruled.

“Go with the women, O Masûd,” said Azim Bey to the faithful negro, who was following them to the back door.

“God forbid, O my lord!” said Masûd, stolidly. “Am I not here to attend upon my lord and mademoiselle, and shall I leave them?”

“Go thy way, O Masûd!” cried Azim Bey, impatiently. “Thou art as well known in Baghdad as the tower of the Lady Zubeydeh (upon whom be peace) itself, and shall we be slain for the sake of thy black face?”

“My lord is very wise, and his servant will obey him,” returned Masûd, and marched back to the other servants.

The door was cautiously opened, and Cecil, clasping the hand of her little pupil, and holding her sheet in the proper way so as to hide all but her eyes, quickly found herself in a narrow lane behind the house. The way had been explained to them, and they started off briskly, scarcely speaking. Azim Bey found this adventure exciting enough to satisfy even his bold aspirations, and Cecil was afraid to begin a conversation, lest her foreign accents should attract the notice of any one in the houses on either side. Presently the lane led them into a quiet street, where little knots of people were standing talking and others were going about their business in a leisurely kind of way, and mingling with these they passed on unnoticed. Next they had to go through one of the bazaars, where business was pretty well over for the day, and where groups of disappointed buyers and unsuccessful salesmen were discussing the crops and abusing the Pasha. Still they were unrecognised, but when they had nearly passed through the bazaar they came upon a blind beggar, who was sitting on the ground, with his hand held out, asking for alms. Before Cecil could stop him, Azim Bey took a coin from his pocket and threw it to him. It was a gold piece, and the mendicant called down blessings on his head as he picked it up. But others had noticed it also, and a crowd of beggars seemed to start up from the very ground as they thronged from their various stations and niches, exhibiting their sores and deformities, and demanding charity rather than entreating it.

“_Voici une foule de gens qui vont nous suivre de nouveau, mademoiselle_,” said Azim Bey, as the shopkeepers and their gossips, attracted by the hubbub, joined the crowd and tried to get a glimpse of these generous strangers. At the sound of the unfamiliar tongue they started and looked curiously at the pair, and a quick buzz went round among them. Cecil grasped her pupil’s hand and dragged him on, once more feeling ready to shake him for his foolishness, but it was evident that the men around had understood who they were, for they closed up as if to hustle them. Intent only on escaping, Cecil led her charge down the first turning they reached, and they hurried on breathlessly, through narrow echoing alleys, with houses almost meeting overhead, while behind them came the sound of many feet. The lanes afforded great facilities for eluding a foe, and Cecil and Azim Bey turned and doubled until they were tired. At last they came out on an open space with a well in it, and found their enemies awaiting them--a motley crowd of rough-looking men, with a sprinkling of impish boys and witch-like old women. A yell arose from the crowd as soon as the fugitives were seen, and Cecil turned and fled once more, dragging the boy with her. For a few moments they ran back along the way they had come (no easy task, as any one who has tried to run in loose slippers along a back alley of Baghdad, unpaved and uneven, will confess), then found themselves at a place where two ways met, hesitated, chose one at random, and came face to face with a detachment of their pursuers. They were doubly pursued now, as they turned back and took the other path, and stones and pieces of rubbish began to hurtle through the air. Suddenly Cecil reeled against the wall and loosed her hold of her pupil’s hand.

“Go on, Bey,” she gasped, “I am spent. I can’t go any farther, but you may get away. Run on a little--creep into some house and hide. Oh, go, go!” as the yells of the enemy approached.

“I shall not go,” returned the boy, stoutly, pulling out a jewelled dagger about three inches long. “I am going to fight for you, mademoiselle, and if they kill you they shall kill me too.”

“Come on again, then,” panted Cecil, spurred forward by the fear of causing the death of her gallant little pupil, and she struggled on a few steps farther. Then a stone struck her on the shoulder, and she tottered and clutched at Azim Bey for support.

“I can’t go on,” she murmured, and the crowd behind, catching a glimpse of her and guessing her exhausted condition, set up a triumphant yell. Goaded on by the sound, she and her pupil made a last dash round a corner into another lane, where they came face to face with Charlie Egerton, who was walking serenely along, cigar in mouth.

“Miss Anstruther!” he gasped, and away went the cigar, and Charlie caught Cecil as she swayed to and fro.

“They are hunting us, monsieur!” cried Azim Bey, in great excitement. “They wish to massacre us! Take care of mademoiselle. As for me, I am going to attack that rabble there.”

“Don’t let him go,” sobbed Cecil, feebly, as the boy unsheathed his dagger anew and started out against the foe, and Charlie grasped the situation.

“Nonsense, Bey; put up that penknife of yours, or keep it until we get to close quarters. Hang on to my coat and come with me.”

To hear his highly-prized dagger called a penknife mortified Azim Bey excessively, and his dignity was also wounded by the familiar tone; but he pocketed his pride and obeyed, holding on to Charlie’s coat on one side while the wearer supported Cecil along with as much tenderness as was compatible with extreme haste. The mob had rushed round the corner by this time, expecting to find an easy prey, but the change in the aspect of affairs rather staggered them, and they followed on in sullen silence for a little while, until their courage revived on realising that Charlie was alone and apparently unarmed. Once more the stones began to fly. One struck Charlie on the head, and Cecil received a blow on the ankle which nearly threw her to the ground.

“Brutes!” muttered Charlie, savagely, casting a hasty glance around in search of some place of refuge. None was visible, and he turned to Azim Bey, and said in his most reassuring tones, “This is warm work, Bey; rather too much of a good thing, in fact. Now suppose you see whether you can get Miss Anstruther on a little, while I try some practice with my revolver?”

“Don’t keep him back with me; send him on,” said Cecil. “Do you remember who he is?”

“Dear me! I forgot that I had Ahmed Khémi Pasha’s son to look after,” said Charlie. “Well, Bey, run on, and make for the Residency as fast as you can.”

“I will not!” cried Azim Bey, indignantly. “My father is Pasha, and I am a gentleman. Shall I leave a lady to perish? No! I will rather shed the last drop of my blood.”

“That’s a brave little chap!” said Charlie. “Now let Miss Anstruther lean upon your shoulder for a minute;” and he drew a revolver from his pocket, and turning, presented it at the foremost of the mob, who were by this time unpleasantly near. The front rank recoiled precipitately, and Charlie seized the opportunity.

“Take my arm again, Miss Anstruther. Hold on tight, Bey. We have not much farther to go now.”

They got on a little way, Cecil stumbling along with clenched teeth and brow drawn with pain. Then the mob began to press on them again, and Charlie fired over their heads. This daunted them a little, but they quickly came on anew, headed by a ferocious-looking ruffian who got near enough to make a snatch at Azim Bey. The boy struck out valiantly with his dagger, and Charlie turned and shot through the wrist the man who had seized him. This excited the pursuers to fury, and Charlie was obliged to walk backwards, threatening the crowd with his revolver, and doing his best to support Cecil at the same time. Happily the lane was so narrow that he was able to foil all attempts at passing him, for if these had succeeded the mob could easily have surrounded and annihilated the three fugitives, but they had a wholesome fear of the revolver in a spot where only two could comfortably walk abreast.

“Four shots more,” said Charlie, half audibly, after a short experience of the difficulties of his present mode of progression, “and the Residency is still---- We shall never reach it at this rate. Here, Bey, you run on until you come to the Residency, and tell them to have the gate open and to call out the guard. Run your hardest, and tell them we are in for a row.”

“I will not run,” said Azim Bey. “I am not a coward. Do you run on, monsieur, and leave me to defend mademoiselle.”

Charlie stamped with impatience, and his revolver went off without his intending it. He turned to the Bey with a very ugly look on his face, and uttered words which it took long for the Pasha’s son to forgive or forget.

“Look here, small boy,” he said, “you will obey orders, if you please. Do you think I would bother myself with you if I didn’t care more for Miss Anstruther’s finger-tip than for the whole of your wretched little body? I might have been able to defend her alone, but you are endangering us both. I tell you what, if you don’t go, I’ll put a bullet through your head, and have no more trouble with you. The only good you can do is to run on and give my message, and fetch help. If you don’t, mademoiselle’s death will lie at your door.”

Away went Azim Bey, in a tumult of rage, indignation, and disgust, hard to imagine and impossible to describe. Charlie heard him running off, and calculated mentally how long he would be in reaching the Residency, and how long in returning with help. Almost at the same moment he found that he was deciding, half mechanically, on which of the leaders of the mob he should bestow his last three shots. He had some more cartridges with him, but he could not load with one hand, and Cecil was clinging, half-unconscious, to his left arm. Moreover, if the crowd saw him stop to load, they would be upon him instantly.

Meanwhile Azim Bey, rushing on, had found that the lane led into the street in which the Residency stood. Running up to the gate, he was stopped by the Sepoy sentry, who refused absolutely to allow him to enter. Here was a blow.

“Slave!” cried the boy, in a frenzy, “dost thou refuse me admittance? Thou knowest not that I am Azim Bey, the Pasha-Governor’s son?”

To this the sentry, seeing only a small boy in a high state of excitement, with worn and ragged clothes splashed and mud-bespattered, replied merely by the Eastern equivalent of “Tell that to the marines,” coupled with a little good advice as to civility of language, and continued to bar the passage. Azim Bey turned pale.

“I must get in!” he cried. “The men of the city are murdering Mdlle. Antaza. Show me the Balio Bey, your officer, the Mother of Teeth--any one--they will know me and send help.”

But the sentry still smiled in grim incredulity, not unmixed with anger at the boy’s disrespectful reference to Lady Haigh; and Azim Bey threw himself on the ground and cast dust upon his head, and wept and stormed in his despair. The more he cursed, the more the sentry laughed, until the noise attracted the attention of Captain Rossiter, an Engineer officer who was making the Residency his headquarters during a series of surveys which he was carrying out for the Indian Government within the borders of the pashalik, and who had lately been present at a _fête_ at the Palace, where Azim Bey had seen him. He happened to be crossing the courtyard, and hearing the din, came to see what was the matter. To him Azim Bey rushed, and clinging to his hand, told his tale of woe, while the tears poured down his grimy little face. The tale was very incoherent, and, moreover, it was related in a strange mixture of tongues; but Captain Rossiter understood enough of it to send him flying madly out into the street and down the lane, with as many of the Sepoys as he could collect at his heels, Azim Bey staggering after them, almost too much exhausted to walk.

They arrived at the scene of action in the nick of time, to find Charlie, his last shot fired, standing at bay in an angle of the wall, with the fainting Cecil all in a heap on the ground behind him, while he was doing his best to defend himself with the butt-end of the revolver. The arrival of the reinforcements turned the scale. The mob fled before the onslaught of the hated Hindus, and Charlie and Captain Rossiter lifted Cecil up, and half-carried her the rest of the way between them. Azim Bey, picked up on the return journey, was hoisted on the shoulders of one of the men, and they retraced their steps, to find that they must force their way through a large and angry crowd which had gathered in the street, and was hurling defiances at the Residency. All eyes were turned on them as they emerged from the lane, and a moment’s hesitation would have been fatal. A yell of execration went up, a hundred hands were grasping missiles and were about to hurl them, but Captain Rossiter said something quickly to Charlie, and gave a sharp order. The Sepoys closed around, the two Englishmen caught up Cecil and carried her across the street at a run, and before the mob had guessed what was going to be done, they were parted as though by a wedge, the gate of the Residency was gained, and their intended victims were out of reach, the stones and potsherds which they threw clattering on the stout doors as these were shut fast, and barred and bolted from within.

“Sharp work!” said Captain Rossiter to Charlie, wiping his face. “I say, I must go and report to the chief. You and Lady Haigh will look after Miss Anstruther, I suppose? She looks pretty bad.”

He went off to Sir Dugald’s office at once, and told him what had happened. Sir Dugald received the news with a look of weary resignation most piteous to behold. His whole diplomatic life was a struggle against the occurrence of what are euphemistically called “complications,” and here was one brewing literally at his very door. He finished the sentence he was writing, folded his papers and locked them up in a drawer, carefully restoring the key to its place on his watch-chain, but as he walked across the courtyard with Captain Rossiter, his perturbation made itself audible in disjointed mutterings.

“Why couldn’t they have taken refuge anywhere rather than here? That fellow Egerton is bound to bring trouble wherever he goes. On my word, it’s ‘heads you win, tails I lose,’ with a vengeance. If the mob attack us, blood won’t wash it out, and if we fire on them we shall have a blood-feud with all the Arabs in the country. Bringing that child here, too, as if to proclaim that we support Ahmed Khémi in all his wretched grinding oppression. We shall be identified with him in the Baghdadi mind for years. Subadar, turn out the guard.”

The last sentence was addressed to the Sepoy officer, who was eagerly awaiting the order, and the soldiers marched down to the gate, where was gathered a crowd of clerks, servants, interpreters, cavasses, and the other motley hangers-on of a consulate in the East, besides a number of people from outside who considered themselves “under protection,” and always sought the Residency in haste at the first sign of a riot. These were all listening, pale with fear, to the repeated crashes as the mob amused themselves by throwing stones at the gate, but they made way with grateful confidence for Sir Dugald as he advanced, his face absolutely impassive once more, and examined the bars and bolts.

“So long as they are content with this,” he said to Captain Rossiter, “we are all right. It’s an insult to the flag, of course, but an apology will set it right. But if they get tired of throwing stones and making no impression, we must still try and keep them off without coming absolutely to blows. I will leave you in charge of the gate, Rossiter, but there must be no firing with ball except in the very last resort. Ah, listen to those mad idiots outside! They are trying to provoke the Sepoys. Send the men back to fetch sand-bags or anything that will strengthen the gate. Either keep them busy or keep them out of hearing.”

Tired of throwing stones without result, the mob were now resorting to hard words. One man after another stood up at a safe distance and howled insults at the Sepoys, their families, and their whole ancestry, and any particularly telling phrase was caught up and echoed by the crowd. Sir Dugald’s brow was furrowed with anxiety as he slowly retraced his steps from the gate, for these Sepoys were fresh from India, full of memories of annual conflicts with Moslems at the Hûli and the Moharram, and he could not tell how long they would stand the provocation they were receiving. From the river-terrace he now sent off a messenger to the Palace, informing the Pasha of the situation, and begging him to send a sufficient force of soldiers to secure his son’s safety and to enable him to return home, either by land or water. And meanwhile he lamented that this “complication” should have happened, as was only natural, at a time when the gunboat was away down the river.