Part 31

"I think--" He turned his face to Katherine, and it was no longer stern and grim, but wore the toothy, cheerful grin of Private Abrahams--"that sometimes that Biggest Old Man of All is quite close to me. Towering up over my head, and sticking out all around me! And the thing he wants I've got to do, and the line he points I follow. And have to until Kingdom Come, and All the Rest, Amen! ..."

"Is he huge and tawny-brown with coarse curls of jet-black hair--and a great beard--and a fillet of white leather, set with green stones--round his forehead? ... Has he a face much like yours, but stern as Destiny? ... Is he wrapped in a great black mantle with a hood like a Dominican's? Does he wear immense thigh-boots and carry an iron-shod staff? ..."

The memory of her dream, months back at Kerr's Arbour, had prompted Katharine's question. John Hazel turned and looked at her in utter amaze.

"That's how _I_ see him, but how do _you_ come to know? ..."

"I don't know,--but I saw a man like that in a dream, once.... I seemed to be in danger, threatened by evil beings, and he came to the rescue. That's absolutely all! But, let me out of the depth of my own ignorance, give you a word of warning. This strange gift of yours ought to be held reverently. Kept a profound secret, and never under any circumstance? whatever submitted to a stranger's control. You understand?"

"All right! I'll be wide--O!" His black eyes snapped as he answered, and she went on:

"Now to come back to usual things, look at this flower, and tell me whether you know it?" She was holding out to him a withered spike of multifold white blossoms, exhaling a faint and delicate smell:

"That lily-thing...." He took it carefully in his big fingers. "All through October it was blooming in Palestine. Acres and acres of it--all white and yellow--when I left the Front to come down here. Smells nice!" He sniffed at it cautiously. "Something between a West End church got up for a Society wedding,--and the hall of a house blocked up with florist's boxes--where there's going to be a first-class funeral.... Presently, when the Spring comes along, there'll be scarlet tulips, and rose and purple anemones, and pink-and-white turncap lilies, and flowers I couldn't as much as name to you--miles and miles of 'em swarming over the plains, and covering the knees of those old Judæan Hills. The name of this is asphodel. I forget who told me! Where did you get it? ... I haven't seen it here! ..."

"It came in the letter you brought me from Palestine...." She took back the withered flower and slipped it back within her blouse. His eyes followed it, and she went on: "It is of the letter I wanted

## particularly to speak to you. For it tells me that Julian--my

brother--is alive! ..."

"And a prisoner! ..." He spoke with certainty....

"And a prisoner at a Turkish labour-camp!"

"What are you going to do? ..."

Her bosom heaved in a perplexed sigh. Her broad brows knitted, and her clear eyes were clouded as she turned them upon John:

"Move Heaven and earth in any way possible to get my poor boy out of that earthly hell! Meanwhile one must wait, I suppose--"

"Does it strike you as a case likely to benefit by waiting?"

"No!--and in spite of that there is nothing to do but wait. Unless--unless you, who were so prompt to help in those troubled days at Kerr's Arbour, could suggest any--definite plan of action to me now? ..."

"I'll do my best, you may be sure!"

"I know you will," she responded gratefully. "But first I must put you in possession of the facts. Julian--"

"Is at Shechem.... I know it already.... No!" For her eyes had cried out to him "Edward! ..." "From another informant than Colonel Yaill. The airman who brought me here,--an Egyptian reconnaissance-officer I met at Salonika--happens to be on special duty at the Palestine Front just now.... Wing-Major Essenian Pasha.... Perhaps you've heard the name? ..."

She thought, and answered:

"Yes, I have often seen it mentioned in Despatches, in association with feats of aviation; bombing-raids carried out single-handed for the most part; dazzling reconnaissances over strongholds held by the enemy...."

"That's my man. 'A vivid personality,' my mother'd have ticketed him.... He was an officer of the Khedive's Artillery in prehistoric ages--at the time of the Egyptian Army Revolt under Arabi Pasha. That was about 1881. And he was with Hicks Pasha's Expedition in 1883--against the Mahdi--which got wiped out by the Baggara near El Obeyd.... He had a command under Baker Pasha in 1884, and was with the Dongola Relief Advance,--and with the Khartoum Column in 1897 ... Emin Pasha was a pal of his--and Gordon thought no end of him.... When the South African War of 1900 broke out he'd retired--was living at Ismailia--as a wealthy Egyptian ex-officer of Engineers.... Took up aviation and started a Flying Club here in Alexandria about 1911.... Gave the Club an aërodrome--with hangars and everything!--the big place you've seen near the Water Works,--and another at Ismailia where he lives--and another on the Upper Nile! ... And as he flies like Satan, the Government snapped at him, when he volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps in 1914...."

"He must be a brave man! ..."

"Got nerve enough for anything! ... And to look at him you'd guess him to be thirty-five as the limit.... Yet there are old men here in Alexandria who've known him since they were gay young Johnnies,--and they're ready to bet their wigs and false teeth that he's always been the same! ..."

"Could Essenian Pasha be of use in this particular emergency? ..."

"You mean your brother's case? ... He had the facts from me at Salonika.... I said the brother of a friend of mine--a Chaplain serving with the Expeditionary--was missing since the storming of Scimitar Hill and supposed to have been killed.... And I mentioned his being a Catholic priest, and added his name, and a few

## particulars. For instance, I'd heard from the landlady at the _Cross

Keys_, Cauldstanes, months ago, that Father Forbis was very handsome. 'As like oor Miss Forbis as gin they were twins'--I can't do her Scotch for peanuts, 'but blue-eyed and wi' fair hair.'"

"It is true. Except about us being so much alike," she said, her eyes now openly brimming over. "For Julian has almost the beauty of an angel, and when he sings, the voice of one. My father worshipped him.... So did Mark--and I for that matter! ... So did the priests and the students at the Seminary, the Prior and the Fathers at the Monastery, and the officers and men of the Brigade with which he served.... You should see the letters they wrote me when his death was reported. And now!--Don't be scared!--I'm not going to cry."

She brought out a little filmy handkerchief and dried the tears bravely, and put it away again....

"Crying isn't of any use. Forget that I was stupid enough to shed tears!--they are over and done with now. Tell me how your friend of the R.F.C. could help us in this strait?"

John Hazel hugged his knee again, and said, with knitted eyebrows:

"You mean, how I think, and he believes, he could help us,--since he dropped down in our lines the day after Sheria. He'd been doing a lot of reconnaissance over Hebron and Shechem, and a shell from a Turkish A.A. had burst near them--and Captain Usborn of the Engineers, his observer--was lying over, stone-dead--behind his Lewis gun.... Shot through the head. See--this is the bullet that did it!" He slipped two fingers inside a front-pocket of his tunic, drew out and showed her the dented cone of lead....

"Isn't that," her fine brows frowned, "rather a gruesome relic to carry? ..."

"Well, you know!--that's as you happen to look at it. I wasn't out for mascots--the thing came my way, and so I just froze on.... And"--he dropped the bullet back again, "then Major Essenian Pasha sent for me, and asked me--I'd flown with him several times near Salonika--"

John Hazel spoke in a low voice calculated just to reach her ear:

"He asked me whether I'd replace Usborn on the flight back to Ismailia,--if permission could be wrested from the Powers that Be? ... Then he went on to tell me of something he'd got from an Arab, with reference to a British prisoner in the labour-camp at Shechem. A Catholic priest, a tall fair man, astonishingly handsome,--who was suffering brutal ill-usage at the hands of Hamid Bey...."

"'Hamid Bey!'" She caught at the name. "Colonel Yaill speaks of that man in my letter.... He is the Turkish Commandant of the prison-camp at Shechem." ...

"He ought to be Commandant of a Division in Hell, going by what I've heard of him! By the way, may I ask you not to mention his name in the hearing of my aunt.... For we Hazaëls," said John with a bitter sneer--"have a little family score of our own to settle with His Excellency, Hamid Bey, Miralai of the Shechem Prison Camp...."

"I shall not forget. I will make a point of being careful! ... But forgive me if I ask you again, how you think this officer--Major Essenian Pasha--could help my brother now? ..."

"Well, for one thing, knowing the lie of the camp pretty well, the Pasha could carry a passenger.... A man who'd be prepared for risks--to some place in the neighbourhood of Shechem. At night, of course I mean,--and drop him there quietly, and fly back at a stated hour--and pick him up again! He could even--given a suitable machine, made to carry more weight and bulk than a mere two-seat scouter--pick up two men near Shechem--and take them to the British lines!"

She drank in the words, her fascinated gaze fixed on the long mahogany-hued hawk-face, which held her with the unwavering stare of its glowing black eyes. She asked with a catch in her hurried breath:

"And the--the 'man prepared for risks,' who would undertake to venture--?"

"Disguised as a Bedawi of a tribe on good terms with the Turks.... I know enough Arabic to get on with. That takes the edge off the risk ... lessens the handicap! Call the chances seventy-five to one against--" said John Hazel coolly,--"and I suppose you wouldn't be so much over the estimate! ..."

"But"--she heard her voice coming from a long way off, out of a breathless stillness: "where is the man who would undertake so perilous a thing?" _Edward!_ her heart throbbed in her, _he is thinking of Edward!_ ...

John Hazel answered quietly:

"You see the man here! ..."

"You? ..."

Her heart gave a great leap against Yaill's hidden letter, stopped--and then went on beating again:

"You mean yourself?--and I thought--"

"I told you I estimated the chances against, at seventy-five to one. So it isn't quite the sort of job you start another man on! It's the kind of thing you calculate to carry through on your own hook. The only thing that badgers me is the chance that your friend the Colonel--"

Their eyes met. He went on, slowly syllabling the words:

"Might be--calculating to play his own game about when I start mine. And for us to clash--"

The startled intake of her breath did not escape him. She finished:

"Would be fatal.... Yes--I can understand! ..."

"For us to clash would bally well upset the apple-cart. You've no idea when Colonel Yaill--"

"He has not named a date! ..."

"But he is going to have a shot at getting your brother out of that labour hell at Shechem...." He studied her face, with its clear eyes and sweet determined mouth.... "And he's told you so in confidence--and you're not going to give away the show! ... Of course you're right! Still--you'll own--it's a bit of a handicap.... 'Too many cooks....' But I'm forewarned, so we'll hope the broth won't be spoiled! Wish we could send the Colonel the tip--but in that line there's nothing doing! One thing I'm sure of. He'd know me again wherever he happened to knock up against me!--and I'd know him if I saw his skin nailed on a gate!" She shuddered, and he added, as a short, slight, dark-skinned officer came out at the lower door opening on the loggia, ushered with scrupulous respect by the black-robed Ephraim. "Now,--may I present to you Major Essenian Pasha? ... He has something to say to me on the quiet about this--projected excursion, or he wouldn't have dropped in here! ... Lives at Ismailia, as I've said.... And before him, better drop no hint of knowing what I've told you.... I'll explain later, why I think it best...."

She said, proudly rearing her beautiful head on her long white throat:

"You need fear no incautious betrayal of your confidence from me...."

XI

John Hazel got up from the granite seat, saluted Miss Forbis, and moved with long strides across the lawn, to meet the visitor....

With strained interest Katharine watched the meeting. The Egyptian Flying Officer, a dark-skinned, bright-eyed, wiry man, whose short and slight, but muscular and active figure was set off by his well-cut uniform of khaki cotton-drill,--said something in a rapid undertone as he met Hazel. Hazel replied. Their colloquy lasted barely a minute, but to Katharine, vibrating with the sense of great issues, it seemed as though the few words spoken by the Egyptian had settled the question at stake.

Then both men crossed the greensward together, the top of the Pasha's sun-helmet barely on a level with Hazel's middle arm. Hazel presented Major Essenian Pasha. The Egyptian bowed like a Frenchman, from the hips, and was profoundly honoured to meet Miss Forbis, of whom he had heard so much from Lady Donnithorpe. And Katharine, responding with her high-bred grace and composure to his frothy compliments, found herself at once repelled and attracted by something in this man.

Small, alert, dark-hued as bronze, with the long, narrow eyes, the wide brows and curving profile of the statues of the Egyptian god Horus, Essenian Pasha might have been barely past thirty, and certainly conveyed the idea of mental vigour, abounding health and restless vitality.

"I had the pleasure some years back," he said to Katharine, "of meeting in Cairo an English officer who may be your relation! Captain Mark Forbis, of a regiment belonging to the Brigade of Guards.... He was for a short period, A.D.C. to the Commander-in-Chief at Ismailia. Captain Forbis was exceedingly handsome. May I say, although he was a blond man, and blue-eyed, that I detect a remarkable resemblance to him in you...."

Katharine answered as the speaker waited, with his gleaming eyes upon her:

"My brother Mark held a Captaincy in a well-known Guards Regiment, the 'Cut Red Feathers.' He was killed at Mons in August, 1914." She added, of purpose, "My younger brother Julian is a Catholic monk of the Order of S. Gerard. He served as a Chaplain with our troops at Suvla and Gallipoli...."

The Pasha's beryl eyes suddenly lightened. He said in his most suave and dulcet tones, his slender fingers smoothing his clipped black moustache:

"Your brother has then undergone some terrible experiences. May I venture to ask if he was present at the assault on Scimitar Hill?"

"He was with his brigade when the 29th Division fought their way up through the scrub-fire." Too late she caught a warning glance from John Hazel's sombre eyes.

"He was not wounded? ..."

"I--hope not! I--I believe not...."

"It must have been a great joy to welcome him back again!"

"It would be, if--"

"If I had!" the sentence would have ended.... But she broke off, her cheeks and the rims of her delicate ears and her fair temples crimson. Yet, after all, why should she prevaricate? What matter if the man did know, thought candid Katharine? Was he not going to help Julian--at least, according to John Hazel? Why, then, had John enjoined reserve and secrecy? ...

Her quick flush faded, but it had not escaped the observation of Essenian. The Horus smile on his dark, smooth lips was subtler and more insinuating, and the gleam between the lids of his long-lashed eyes more languid than before, as he said:

"I understand. Though the Allied Forces have been withdrawn--and the Campaign of the Dardanelles is relegated to the pigeon-hole where Whitehall keeps its failures--your brother has not been lucky enough yet to obtain leave? ..."

He seemed to be probing, with his bland, persistent questions and veiled looks of sympathy, in Katharine's aching heart. She gave a little, irresistible shudder. He saw it, and continued in his smooth, caressing voice:

"Or possibly the duties of a priest detain Mr. Forbis elsewhere? We Easterns have a proverb--it may be new to you:" The insinuating tones were even more gentle and velvety:

"_For a plain man to become a priest is robbery of one woman. For one handsome man who becomes a priest a hundred women are robbed!_"

The tone, rather than the words, conveyed something indescribably offensive. John Hazel started, palpably, and his scowl was thunderous. Wrath surged in Katharine's blood and she tingled to the finger-tips with a momentary, almost ungovernable desire to strike this man's smooth face. Scandalised at herself, furious with him, she commanded herself sufficiently to say in cool unruffled tones, rising from her seat:

"Charmed to have met you, Major Essenian Pasha.... Mr. Hazel, ever so many thanks for showing us your beautiful house. Now I must go and say good-bye to your aunt, and collect my friend, Lady Wastwood, for we are due at the Hospital. No!--please don't come with me--though you might 'phone for the car! ..."

"Mine is at the door.... I should be honoured and charmed if Miss Forbis and her friend would use it!" came in the soft ingratiating tones of Essenian....

John Hazel, already striding towards the house, halted and wheeled, looking at Katharine. Something in the expression of his black eyes conveyed the warning: It would be wiser not to snub this man! And, with revolt and distaste thrilling in her blood, Miss Forbis forced herself to smile and be gracious, and accept the officious offer of the Pasha's automobile.

"One moment, my King of Damascus, while I instruct my chauffeur where to take the ladies, and call for me later.... 'The Palace, Montana,' is it not?" Essenian said to John Hazel, glancing at a platinum watch in a band of grey gazelle-leather, strapped on his slender dusky wrist.

If a second rapid exchange of glances between Katharine and Hazel did not escape his observation, he gave no sign. He smiled, and went back across the lawn to the house, a small, slender figure, moving with short rapid steps, almost mincingly, and--for the Pasha's presence oppressed her physically--Katharine could breathe freely again....

"Miss Forbis!" John Hazel spoke quickly and in an undertone: "It's for your own sake I presumed to dictate to you just now in the matter of accepting the Pasha's civility. You see, when you let out your brother was a priest, you put Major Essenian wise to the prisoner's identity. Can't very well snub a man when he's going to risk his life for you! And the thing's fairly settled. We leave Ismailia Air Station for Shechem at the latest," he glanced at his wrist-watch, "by three to-morrow morning!"

"To-morrow morning! ..." She caught her breath, and he could see her heart's tumultuous throbbing under the thin white silk of her dainty blouse.

"Oh dear John Hazel!" she said with passionate fervour, her wide eyes, their irises mere tawny circles round the dilated pupils,--fixed upon his swarthy, excited face.... "May God protect and keep you!--and help you to save him!--my dear old Julian--my poor boy! ... Tell me how long I have to wait before I may hope to hear from you! How and when shall I hear? ..."

"If things go wrong I can't answer for your hearing...." John grinned with the grin of Private Abrahams.... "Unless they let me come back from the Other Side to report! But if things go right,--and we get your brother out of that"--he did not finish the sentence, "I pledge you my word you shall hear from me within twenty-four hours of the snatch!"

"Thank you. And--Mr. Hazel," she was holding out two letters, one inscribed only with a name, the other addressed twice over--once in a large, ornate, feminine hand, to "Lieut. Col. Edward Yaill, Kerr's Arbour, Cauldstanes, Tweedshire, N.B." and again in old Whishaw's staggering round-hand to "Care of Miss Forbis, No. --th Unit V.A.D. Royal Red Cross Society, Care of the Commandant Convalescent Hospital, Montana, Alexandria, Egypt."

"Were these a charge for me?" he asked.

"Yes. I am going to ask you to take them with you, in case you should again meet Colonel Yaill. One is my answer to the letter you brought. There is a line in it for Julian.... You see," she turned the envelope, "I have sealed it with my onyx ring. That is Julian's really--and a day may come when I shall be able to hand it over to him! The other came yesterday with my mail from Home.... I do not know, but I imagine--it is from the lady who--is Colonel Yaill's wife...."

"Righto! I'll take 'em both along. If I can't get 'em where they ought to go, you shall have 'em back anyway."

"Thanks!" She drew a breath of sheer relief as he took the letters from her. Ah! my sweet-hearted Katharine. How womanfully you had striven with the urgent desire to tear that buff-coloured envelope, leprous with stamps of different hues and scored with many postmarks, into a thousand infinitesimal pieces; and how thoroughly, as things turned out,--you would have been punished if you had....

"Does it strike you as it does me," John glanced at the concave impression of her ring, "that just about here is where--" He stooped his tall head nearer and dropped his voice to a tone even lower, "that just here's where the signet both of us wear may be useful! Don't take any screed you get from me as Gospel truth--because it happens to be signed 'John Hazel'! Even suppose you got a line from me, saying, '_Come at once!_'--don't come unless the paper bears an impression of this...." He thrust forward the big left hand that wore the onyx head of Hercules. "Stuck underneath the signature, in sealing-wax, or clay, or mud--or bread, even.... And test it by the ring you wear, before you accept it.... And seal your communications to me in the same old way. Do you tumble? I mean--do you say 'Done!'"

"Done! ..."

"And--you trust me? ..."

"I trust you absolutely! Even though you sent for me, not saying why I was needed, the signet-seal would be enough--I'd say 'Julian,' and come! ..."

"Then that's arranged! ..." He saw in the sudden change of her face that something menaced. Even before he turned his head the smooth voice of Essenian said, a long way below the level of his own great shoulder: