A DISAPPOINTMENT AND A DRAGOMAN

It was a blow not to see Anthony on the quay. And other blows rained thick and fast. My two consolations were that I was actually in Egypt; and that in the confusion Rechid Bey with the veiled figure of his silent bride had slipped away without further incidents. Their disappearance was regretted by no one save Monny, unless it was Neill Sheridan, and he was discreet enough to keep his feelings to himself. The girl was not. She protested on principle, although she had the Asiut address. But where all men, black and brown and white, were yelling with the whole force of their lungs, and pitching and tossing luggage (mostly the wrong luggage) with all the force of their arms, nobody heard or cared what she said. For once Monny Gilder was disregarded by a crowd of men. This could happen only at the departure of a boat train! But if I was not thinking about her, I was thinking about her fifteen trunks, and Cleopatra's sixteen and Biddy's and Miss Guest's two. The maids were worse than useless, and I had no valet. I have never had a valet. I clawed, I fought, I wrestled in an arena where it was impossible to tell the wild beasts from the martyrs. I rescued small bags from under big boxes, and dashed off with a few samples to the train, in order to secure places. All other able-bodied men, including Sheridan and the artist sculptor Bailey, were engaged in the same pursuit, and our plan was to "bag" a whole compartment between us in the boat-special for Cairo. But we never met again till we reached our destination. One expects Egypt to warm the heart with its weather, but the cold was bitter; so was the disappointment about Anthony. Both cut through me like knives. Darkness had fallen before I was ready to join the ladies—if I could. In passing earlier, I had shouted to the maids where to find the places, grabbed with difficulty, for their mistresses. Whether they had found them, or whether any of the party still existed, was the next question; and it was settled only as the train began to move. The compartment I had selected was boiling over with a South American president and his effects; but as I stood transfixed by this transformation scene, Cleopatra's maid hailed me from the end of the corridor. Les quatres dames were in the restaurant car. Why? Ah, it was the Arab they had engaged as dragoman, who had advised the change in milord's absence. He said it would be better, as of course they would want dinner. He himself was looking after the small baggages, except the little sacks of the hand which the maids kept.

What, the ladies had engaged a dragoman! And they had trusted him—a stranger—with luggage? Then it was as good as gone! But no, mildly ventured Cleopatra's handmaiden. The dragoman came recommended. He had a letter from a friend of milord.

My thoughts jumped, of course, to Anthony. Yet how could he have known that I was travelling with ladies? And if by some Marconian miracle he had heard, why should he, who prided himself on "not bothering" with women, trouble to provide a dragoman at Alexandria?

I hurried to the dining car, and found Monny with her satellites seated at a table, three of them looking as calmly innocent as if they had not upset my well-laid scheme for their comfort. Biddy alone had a guilty air, because, perhaps, I was more important in her eyes than in the eyes of the others. "Oh, dear Duffer," she began to wheedle me: "We hope you don't mind our coming here? We thought it a good idea, for we're starving, although we're perfectly happy because we're in Egypt, and because it's such a quaint train, so different and Eastern. The dragoman who——"

"I think he came from your friend Anthony with an 'H,'" Cleopatra broke in. "He seemed providential. And he speaks English. The only objection is, he's not as good-looking as Monny and I wanted our dragoman to be. We did hope to get one who would be becoming to us, you see, and give the right sort of Eastern background. But I suppose one can't have everything! And it was I who said your friend Anthony's messenger must be engaged even if his face is—is—rather like an accident!"

"It's like a catastrophe," remarked Monny, looking as if she blamed me.

"Where is it?" I wanted to know.

"It's waiting in a vestibule outside where the cook's cooking," Biddy explained ungrammatically. "I told it you'd want to see it. And it's got a letter for you from some one." "Did the fellow say the letter was from Fenton?" I inquired.

"No. He only said, from a friend who'd expected to meet you; and Mrs. East was sure it must be from the one you were talking about."

Wasting no more words, I marched off to the fountainhead for information. Near the open door of the infinitesimal kitchen stood a fat little dark man with a broken nose, and one white eye. The other eye, as if to make up, was singularly, repellently intelligent. It fixed itself upon me, as I approached, with eager questioning which melted into ingratiating politeness. Instinct warned the fellow that I was the person he awaited. At the same moment, instinct was busily whispering to me that there was something fishy about him, despite the alleged letter. He did not look the type of man Fenton would recommend. And though his face was of an unwholesome olive tint, and he wore a tarbush, and a galabeah as long as a dressing-gown, under his short European coat, I was sure he was not of Arab or Egyptian blood.

"Milord Borrow?" he began, displaying large white teeth, of which he was evidently proud.

I assented.

"My name is Bedr el GemÁly," he introduced himself. "I have a letter for milord."

"Who gave it to you?" I challenged him.

The ingratiating smile seemed to flicker like a candle flame in a sudden puff of wind. "A friend of my, a dragoman. He could not come to bring it. So he give it to me. The gentleman's name was Fenton. My friend, he was sent from him at Cairo." As the fellow spoke, in fairly good English, he took from a pocket of the short coat which spoiled his costume, a colourful silk handkerchief. Unwrapping this, he produced an envelope. It was addressed to me in the handwriting of Fenton, but before opening it I went on with my catechism.

"Then the letter doesn't introduce you, but your friend?"

The smile was practically dead now. "I think it do not introduce any ones. It is only a letter. My friend Abdullah engaged to carry it. But he got sick too soon to come to the ship."

"I see," said I. "You seem to have used the letter, however, to get yourself taken on as dragoman by the ladies of my party. How the devil did you find out that they were travelling with me, eh?" I shot the question at him and tried to imitate gimlets with my eyes. But he was ready with his answer. No doubt he had prepared it.

"I see you all together, from a distant place, before I come there. A gentleman off the ship, he pointed you out when I ask where I find Milord Borrow. I see you, and those ladies. When I come, you was away already, so I speak to them, and say if I could help, I be very pleased. When I tell one of the ladies I was from a friend of milord's with a letter, she say, is the friend's name Captain Fenton, and I say 'yes, madame, Captain Fenton, that is the name; and I am a dragoman to show Egypt to the strangers. I know it all very well, from Alexandria way up Nile.' Then the lady say very quick she will take me for her dragoman. I am pleased, for I was not engaged for season, and she say if I satisfy her she keep me in Cairo and on from there." "H'm," I grunted, still screwing in the gimlets. "I see you're not an Egyptian. You have selected the name of an Armenian famous in history. Are you Armenian?"

"I am the same thing as Egyptian, I bin here for dragoman so many years. I am Mussulman in faith. But I was born Armenian," he admitted.

"You speak English with an American accent," I went on. "Have you lived in America?"

"One time a family take me to New York and I stay a year or two. Then I get homesick and come to Egypt again. But I learn to talk maybe some like American peoples while I am over there."

It sounded plausible enough, the whole story. And if Mrs. East had snapped the dragoman up under the impression that he came from a man she had determined to meet, the fellow might be no more to blame than any other boaster, touting in his own interest. Still, I had an uneasy feeling that something lay hidden under Armenian plausibility. Bedr el GemÁly was perhaps a thief who had courted a chance for a big haul of jewellery. Yet if that were all, why hadn't he hopped off the tram, as it began to move, with the ladies' hand luggage? He might easily have got away, and disappeared into space, before we could wire the police of Alexandria to look out for him. He had not done that, but had waited, and risked facing my suspicions. And he must have realized, while in charge of Monny's and Cleopatra's attractive dressing bags, that he was missing an opportunity such as might never come to him again. This conduct suggested an honest desire to be a good dragoman. Yet—well, I resolved not to let the gimlets rust until Bedr el GemÁly had been got rid of. If Mrs. East had really promised him a permanent engagement, she could salve his disappointment by giving him a day's pay. I would take the responsibility of sending him about his business.

Without further parley I opened the letter. It was short, evidently written in a hurry. Anthony had scribbled:

Horribly sorry, dear old Duffer, but I'm wanted by the Powers that Be in Cairo. No other reason could have kept me from Alexandria. I was afraid a wire wouldn't reach you, so I sent a decent old chap by the train I meant to take. He's pledged to find you on the quay, and he will—unless some one makes him drunk. This seems unlikely to happen, as he won't be paid till he gets back, and having no friends on earth, nobody will stand him drinks. Beastly luck, but I shan't be able to see you to-night even in Cairo. Tell you all to-morrow—and there's a lot to tell, about many things.

Yours ever,

A.F.

The messenger had "no friend on earth," according to Fenton. Then the friendship stated to exist between him and Bedr el GemÁly must have come readymade from heaven, or—its opposite. I guessed the nature of the "decent old chap's" illness. But I should have been glad to know whether it had been produced by design or accident.

When I went back to the ladies, Bedr went with me, at my firm suggestion, and gave them their handbags to use as footstools. Dinner was ready, and a seat had been kept for me at a table just across the aisle, but before beginning, I explained the real circumstances governing the dragoman's arrival. "Whatever else he may be, he's a shark," I said, "or he wouldn't have traded on a misunderstanding to grab an engagement. You owe him nothing really, but if you choose, give him a sovereign when we get to Cairo, and I'll tell him that I have a dragoman in view for the party. He'll then have two days' pay, according to the guide-books."

With this, I slipped into my seat, thinking the matter settled. But between courses, Monny leaned across from her table (she and I had end seats) and said that she and her aunt had been talking about that poor dragoman. "Aunt Clara raised his hopes," the girl went on, "and now Rachel Guest and I think it would be mean to send him away, just because he's hideous."

"That won't be the reason!" said I. "It will be because we don't know anything about him, and because in his sharpness he's over-reached himself."

"But we do know things about him. He showed Aunt Clara letters from people who'd employed him, lots of Americans whose names we've heard, and some we're acquainted with. The tragic thing is, that he finds difficulty in getting engaged because of his face. I've felt guilty ever since I called it a catastrophe. Of course it is; but I said it to be funny, which was cruel. And we deserve to punish ourselves by keeping the poor wretch a few days, or more, if he's good."

"I thought you wanted a becoming dragoman?" I reminded her.

"Oh, that was just our silliness. I do like good-looking people, I must say. But what does it matter whether a brown person is handsome or homely, when you come to think of it? Besides, we can have another dragoman, too, for ornament, if we run across a very picturesque one."

I laughed. "But you can't go up the Nile on a boat with a drove of private dragomans, you know!"

"I don't know, Lord Ernest. And why don't you call them dragomen? You make them sound as if they were some kind of animal."

"Dragomans is the plural," I persisted.

"Well, I shall call them dragomen. And if this poor thing can't get any one else to drag, he shall drag us up the Nile, if he's as intelligent in his ways as he is in that one eye, which is so like a hard-boiled egg. You see, Lord Ernest, we're going to have a boat of our own. A steam dahabeah is what we want, so we won't be at the mercy of the wind. And we can have all the dragomen we choose, can't we?"

"I suppose you can fill up your cabins with them," I agreed, because I felt that the Gilded Rose wished me to argue the point, and that if I did I should be worsted. As I should not be on board the dahabeah in question, it would not matter to me personally if the boat were entirely manned by dragomans. Except that there would in that case probably be a collision, and I should not be near to save Biddy—and incidentally the girl Biddy wished me to marry.

After that, we went on eating our dinner and talking of Egypt, Miss Guest doing all the listening, as usual. When we had finished, we kept our places because we had no others. Cleopatra was curious about my friend's failure to arrive, but I put her off with vaguenesses; and said to myself that, for Anthony's sake, it was well that mysterious business had kept him in Cairo. Still, I wondered what the business was: why he would be unable to see me that night: and what were the "many things" he had to tell.