Chapter XII

"The name of Forbes is common enough in your North Britain--the name of Forbis sufficiently unusual, to put me on the scent. And--one looks for the lady in these affairs!" purred Essenian, as he left the house in the Rue el Farad with John Hazel--profiting by the coolness of the evening to walk to the Aviators' Club. "Let me add, your taste is unimpeachable. I have never seen a handsomer Englishwoman than your friend."

Now he pursued, in his smooth, book-learned English, drawing out a platinum cigarette case--opening and offering it to John:

"Take one. The Macedonian leaf failed last year, but not so the crops of Shiraz, grown and ripened side by side with the purple-petalled afiyûn. You perhaps may not know this Club..." he added a little later, as they entered the wide, cool vestibule of a handsome granite building in Sherif Pasha Street. "No! Well, I anticipated you would not! ... Originally an association of mere amateur civilians, meeting periodically to exchange experiences--the Club has become,--since Government took over our aërodrome and hangars--you know them!--near the Water Works due east of Aboukir Road--a resort for Flying Officers of all grades and branches of the Service.... Since then, if much more social--we are a damnable lot more noisy and a good deal less exclusive.... Still, our Club remains distinguished by its European comfort, and its excellent _cuisine_!"

The dining-room into which a demure Levantine waiter ushered Essenian and his companion, was perfectly ventilated by electric appliances, and open along the whole of one side towards a sanded court containing a fountain, a great many long cane-chairs and several palms; and of the many small tables dotted over the spotless matting covering the floor, the majority were empty, though apparently reserved for diners. A few were already occupied. With the men who sat at them,--officers of the R.F.C. from the land-stations in the neighbourhood, and others of the R.N.A.S. from the sea-plane-stations at Ramleh, Port Said, Wara in the Delta,--and the seaplane-carrier anchored at the moment in the Port, Essenian exchanged nods and salutes of smiling courtesy. Several of the younger men stood up to greet him--though none approached the table where the Egyptian airman sat with a long-legged private of Territorials, wearing the badges of a London Regiment....

The temperature of the room approximated to that of London in July, thanks to the incessant movement of the wooden ceiling-fans. The dinner began excellently, with _hors d'œuvres_ of giant prawns, miniature cucumbers and fresh olives, and a shell-fish of delicate flavour, served on miniature mountains of finely pounded ice. A Comet hock accompanied, and a clear soup was succeeded by a _turban de turbot_, perfectly cooked, and a curry of tiny whitebait-like fish from the Canal.

Roast lamb and duckling followed, both of remarkable succulence, and John Hazel, who had lived for weeks on bully-beef and onions, tough Palestine goat-mutton, and slabby rice-pudding speckled with the bodies of defunct flies,--having--in the unavoidable absence of these--cheerfully battened on iron rations, the bottom of a tin of jam and a handful of sticky dates,--yielded now to the immemorial allure of the Egyptian fleshpots; and attacking dish after dish with the ferocity of an ogre, slaked his huge thirst with repeated draughts of the well-iced champagne supplied....

The magnificent red roses massed in a crystal and silver rose-bowl in the centre of their table, and the gratification of satisfying the hunger that raged in him, prevented him from grasping a fact to which he awakened later,--when quail from Upper Egypt with egg-plant and quince salad, and snipe from the marshes of the Delta succeeded the lamb and duckling, and he paused to gather breath.... For Essenian sat smiling on the other side of the roses, before unused cutlery and silver, and an array of wine-glasses innocent of wine.

"My hat! Pasha, what must you think of me?" John began, nearly dropping the fork and spoon that were lifting a plump quail from the offered dish: "This ain't your Ramadan, is it, by any chance? No, of course, that comes in May. Has anything put you off your feed, or don't you ever eat?"

"Have no anxiety on my account, my King of Damascus," returned Essenian, narrowing his long eyes as he smiled upon his guest: "I am well, and that I continue so, I owe to precautions which may seem absurd to you. But every advantage we enjoy in this world has to be purchased--and I purchase vigour and health at the expense of my appetite.... Pray do justice to the quail, while I follow my usual rule."

He clapped his hands, and an Egyptian body-servant, who had stood immovable in the background, holding a silver tray, moved noiselessly forwards and set before Essenian a goblet of crystal and a long-necked crystal beaker;--together with some small covered dishes of delicate porcelain, revealing when the covers were lifted--nothing beyond a few fresh dates, a small, snow-white cream cheese, and a delicate napkin, enveloping a round cake of bread.

"Distilled water and freshly-gathered fruit, with bread of the purest sesame-flour.... Of these, in limited quantity, I may eat twice in the day. Preferably, at dawn, and after sunset; though by religion I am no more Moslem than I am a Christian," said Essenian, daintily filling the crystal goblet, "or a Parsi, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist, or a Jew...." He broke bread.... "What is this? ..." He turned with feline suddenness on the dusky servant who stood behind him, and said harshly, speaking in Arabic: "There is error! The sesame has been mingled with wheaten-flour. It is impure.... I cannot eat of it! ... Take it away at once...."

"_La yâ Sidi--Allâh yisallimak!_" the man protested, paling under his chocolate skin.

But Essenian had sniffed the bread-cake remotely and delicately as a fox might sniff at some slily-poisoned titbit, and now replaced it on the dish, and thrust the dish away....

"Carry it to the cook and inquire into the matter!" He said to Hazel, as the servant removed the dish and vanished straightway: "Do not be disturbed on my account! To one so well schooled in abstinence as myself, it would matter little if the meal consisted only of dates. Mixed in a draught of this pure water, a few drops of an excellent tonic (to the virtues of which I am a living testimony) will more than supply the deficiency.... Meanwhile, do not neglect our _chef's_ excellent _omelette soufflée_. Or the _bombe glace_ of custard-apple on which he prides himself.... And then--since I know better than to offer cheese to a man who has been 'fed to the wide,' with that as an article of Army rations,--I will join you in a cup of Arabian coffee, black, thick and bitter as the nectar of Mocha should be."

He took from a front pocket of his Service jacket a little case of shining yellow metal, and opening it, showed three slender crystal vials, reposing in a velvet bed. He unstoppered one,--tinging the air laden with the savour of meats and viands--with a whiff of something delicately pungent--rather suggesting the fragrance of lemon-plant to John.... Then with dainty, scrupulous care, he dropped seven drops into the goblet of distilled water; re-stoppered the vial, wiped the lip with a green leaf, returned the vial to its bed, and pocketed the case,--watching through narrowed eyelids the turbid changes taking place in the clear liquid, until as it deepened from cloudy red to clearest ruby, he glanced across the rose-bowl to encounter Hazel's eyes....

"A pretty colour, is it not?" he said critically, holding up the goblet. "Now I will drink, and you must join me. I hope you do not find fault with our Club champagne? ..." He continued, signing to the attendant, who stood ready with another napkined bottle: "That you have been drinking came from von Falkenhayn's Headquarters in Transylvania,--when we bombed him out of them in the summer of 1916.... That defeat of the Vulkan Pass must have been a crushing blow to the Emperor's magnificent favourite,--coming after the tremendous failure of the Second Attack on Verdun."

To the rout of the Vulkan Pass, John knew, Essenian's prowess had contributed. When Roumania had joined the Allies in the August of 1916, and massed her Army on the Carpathian frontier for an invasion of Transylvania, Essenian had acted as Wing Commander of a squadron of Allied Aircraft, acting in concert with a Roumanian Army Corps,--and for his services had been distinguished with the Order of the Roumanian Crown. At Salonika, later on,--for the first time meeting Essenian--John had encountered the French observer who had accompanied the Egyptian's flights.

"They are greatly strong in artillery, the Austro-Germans of von Falkenhayn! ... We are not so.... The Roumanians are only strong in men. As we march on they retreat,--for two weeks it is a triumph.... Then their von Falkenhayn gives the signal, and their guns begin to play on us.... I who speak have been under fire!--was I not in the advanced trenches at Verdun with my storming-party, before I joined the _Service Aëronautique_! But this was super-gunnery--a torrent of steel and fire and German High Explosive, sweeping--as with the Devil's broom--the mountain-passes clear! All through October continues the fight--every day we are flying! In fog, and rain--zut! rain of shrapnel and fog of poison-gas--we never cease to fly.... When we are not observing--we are bombing! Or making more rain on the Austro-German Divisions--a rain of steel _flechettes_! Me, I am no coward! but whenever M. Essenian Pasha says to me: 'Prunier, this, day or night, my friend, you accompany me in my _avion_....' I say to myself as we used to say with my storming-party at Verdun: '_Ça va barda, mon ami! Prepare ton matricule!_' For M. le Major will fly with a broken wing, or a bullet through the petrol-tank, and all the juice running! ... _C'est un as!_ ... He puts in me the fear of God--that man who has none at all! ..."

Meanwhile Essenian ate of dates and cheese sparingly, sipped his tonic drink appreciatively, and waited for the man on the other side of the crimson roses to talk.

"Here is the port." He added as the servant filled Hazel's glass from a cobwebbed and ancient-looking bottle: "Don't drink yet. Let us follow the ancient fashion, the first glass of the bottle to a lady's health! ... I propose: 'The beautiful Miss Forbis! ...' What, do you break the glass?"--for John had nodded, and his huge brown fingers had snapped the stem of the wineglass like a match-stick as they set it, emptied, down. "Take a fresh one,--finish the bottle,--and meanwhile try those cheroots.... Or the others--excellent Havanas, though I smoke cigarettes for my own part, or else the water-pipe--our Egyptian _ârgili_. Ah, here is the coffee," said Essenian pleasantly, as the Egyptian servant previously dismissed, re-appeared at his elbow with another tray. "Black as the eyes and perfumed as the breath of the brides who lead the sons of Islam into the green pavilions of Paradise. Though," he smiled amiably at John over the cigarette he was lighting, as the attendant removed the empty bottle and placed a flask of Benedictine with the coffee beside the guest--"your personal predilection leans to something statelier and less seductive than the gazelle-eyed, moon-faced _haura_ of the glorious Koran.... What says our Saadi: 'The tresses of Beautiful Ones are chains upon the Feet of Prudence, and a snare upon the wings of the Bird of Wisdom..... We Easterners hardly credit the existence of Friendship between those of opposite sexes," pursued the Egyptian, letting the sentences trickle over his smooth lips as though they had been honey, "and yet, subsisting between an intellectual man, and a mentally-superior woman, it may be productive of more lasting gratification than the merely sensual tie."

"What are you getting at, Essenian Pasha?" asked his guest, bluntly.

Essenian had paused as though inviting a reply, and this was the response forthcoming. A faint line showed between his smooth black eyebrows and his tones were less sweet and liquid as he resumed:

"But this,--that such a union between man and woman might lead to great discoveries--in those psychological regions which we are beginning to explore. Two such adventurers, mutually keen, mutually gifted with spiritual perception, bound by sympathies unblunted by the earthly passion of love, might pass back along paths long buried beneath the _débris_ of extinct civilisations--trodden by the footsteps of generations who went before them, to the furthermost limits of the Mysterious Unknown."

He waited. This latest opening proved no whit more successful than others previously given. John Hazel continued to drink, and smoke, and answered nothing. To pry out the diamond hidden in this lump of living clay,--to wrench open the rugged valves of this human mollusc housing the pearl of priceless knowledge,--was going to be more difficult than Essenian had thought....

"Your friend, Miss Forbis," he resumed, and now the heavy eyes were on him, "strikes me as possessing an unusual degree of psychic force and energy, in combination with her remarkable physical beauty and charm. That she is less handsome than her brother, one would be disinclined to credit, were her own testimony not corroborated by the evidence of T.R.S. 43."

"And who might the gentleman you mention be, and what the--what does he know about it?" demanded John Hazel, regarding his host with a decided scowl, and speaking in an aggressive tone.

"T.R.S. is a Turkish Renegade Spy whom I recently met and interviewed at the B.S.I. Office Ismailia," returned Essenian smoothly, "on a subject of vital interest to your attractive English friend.... 'Describe,' I said, 'this British priest who lies in prison at Shechem,' and the man answered '_Mashallah!_' Describe the Archangel Jibrail when he came from the Ninth Heaven to announce to Mary the Pure One the Miraculous Birth of the Messiah--between Whom and the touch of Satan, at the moment of His Nativity--the Lord of Creation interposed a veil!' He was quite serious--Turks are idolaters of physical perfection.... Incidentally, he wound up with a few details concerning the--disposition, and predilections distinguishing the Turkish Lieutenant-General of gendarmerie who is at present Commandant of the Prison Camp at Shechem,--which throw a rather lurid light upon the conditions there...."

He chafed his delicate finger-tips softly against each other as he leaned both elbows on the cloth and smiled over the roses into Hazel's gloomy eyes.

"Hamid is a--let us say a protégé of the notorious Djemal Pasha, once Turkish Minister of Marine--now Commander of the Fourth and Eighth Turkish Army Corps. Of mean birth, a Turk from Crete--he bids fair to out-Djemal Djemal.... I need not remind you that Crete is--the country of the Minotaur! ..."

The speaker's beryl eyes shone green in the light of the electric globe-lamps. His voice had a little poisonous hiss through its delicate silkiness.

"Since the prison camps of Beersheba were shifted to Shechem, their Commandant has a narrower field for the exercise of his peculiar bent.... According to my Turkish spy, he has what you would call 'a down' upon your friend's brother,--whose refusal to be removed from the Barracks to the wired camp set apart for the officer-prisoners has offended the Bey.... Perhaps the presence of the priest is a check upon his usage of the soldiers, whom Father Forbis nurses in fever and other sickness, and for whom he has obtained consular funds for the purchase of medicines, charcoal for fires, meat for broth, and so on...."

He satisfied himself by a swift glance that John was absorbed in listening, and resumed: "Turks are--Turks!" He made as though to spit, but checked himself, and went on: "You have said to me: 'We Hazaëls have an old score to settle up with Hamid....' Two years have not changed the Bey. He is still the Minotaur! ... And unless Fortune, or," he shrugged "the favour of Heaven, operate in the interests of this brother of your friend, his may yet be the fate from which self-slaughter saved your Cousin Jacob--Catholics being forbidden that last resource of the desperate.... Escape from torture or degradation by the Gate of Suicide...."