The Quest of Julian Day (35 page)

I had hardly poured myself a glass of wine before she came back into the marquee as serene and smiling as a seraph and as good to look at as the No. I Lady of the old Zeigfield Follies who used to be picked from the likely lasses of all America.

Coming straight over to me, she curled her arms round my neck and drew my head down to hers. Very soon I was wondering if I could really trust my ears or if they had deceived me. It seemed utterly impossible to believe that this starry-eyed
young thing scarcely out of her teens could have plotted such a black betrayal; yet, all the time, I knew it was so.

We took the bottle into the inner sanctum and drank some more of the sparkling wine. The flawless beauty of her began to get hold of me again. My knowledge of the truth about her should, I suppose, have made her personality repellent to me but, now that she was lying there beside me displaying all her charms in the soft glow of the shaded lamp, it did not do so. In fact, she was such a delectable morsel that in spite of her treacherous little brain I could cheerfully have eaten her. During the interval that followed, upon which I will not dwell, apart from her caresses I was only conscious that the whole of my secret inner being rocked with silent, semi-insane, gargantuan laughter at the thought that I was capable of such monstrous cynicism.

The bottle and our amorous dalliance having come to an end we went to sleep again; but the night still held its unexpected excitements. I woke at the sound of angry voices coming from the entrance of the marquee. Oonas woke at the same moment. Slipping from my arms she jumped out of bed, pulled on a robe and said hurriedly:

‘It must be the Sheik and the people from the village. They got drunk after we left, I expect. Leave this to me. Do not come out whatever you do, my sweet, because when these people are drunk they are sometimes difficult and they have a hate against the English.'

Believing it to be the Sheik creating a fuss because he feared to lose his blood-money now the orders for my assassination had been cancelled I let her go, assuming that she would easily be able to get rid of him by paying him off but, as a precaution. I jumped out of bed myself, lit the lamp, looked to my automatic and started to scramble into my clothes.

The curtains dividing the marquee were drawn but it was evident that our visitors had forced their way into the ante-room. I could hear Oonas quarrelling with them and suddenly, with a violent shock, I realised that their leader was not the Sheik at all. That high-pitched, feminine voice could only be Zakri Bey's.

Oonas was putting up a grand show. She was threatening
everybody with death and damnation if they did not clear out and leave her in peace, but Zakri was angry and persistent.

‘I will not allow your fads and fancies to interfere with our arrangements!' he piped, as with feverish haste I now hustled on the rest of my clothes. ‘This man is a danger to us and after tonight we will see to it that he is a danger no more. You can have all the men in Egypt for your lovers if you like. But Day must be eliminated. Stand aside, now! Or you'll make it necessary for me to have my people lay hands on you.'

I waited to hear no more but dived at the skirting of the marquee and, wrenching it up, wriggled underneath it.

The moon had long since set and the stars were paling but there was just enough light for me to see by and, since I could glimpse the palms ahead, it was certain that my would-be murderers would be able to spot me if any of them were looking in my direction. I prayed to all the gods that the whole party was in the marquee as I took to my heels and ran for dear life along the high bank above the river. I had hardly covered fifty yards before I heard Oonas give a frantic cry of warning.

‘Julian! Julian! Save yourself or these men will kill you!'

Her shout was followed by the sound of shots. I stopped dead in my tracks; but only for a second. However unscrupulous Zakri might be he was not the sort of man to risk possible trouble for himself by shooting down a woman like Oonas without due deliberation; especially when it would be so easy for him and his men simply to thrust her out of the way. Evidently she had snatched up a small automatic, which I had noticed among her kit, and it was
she
who was firing on
them
.

A hundred yards from the tent I paused for breath and looked desperately round me for some place to hide, but the ragged line of palms gave little cover and beyond it lay the barren desert. By the faint greyness which lighted the sky in the east I knew that dawn was approaching. At most I could not cover more than a couple of miles before sun-up and wherever I might try to conceal myself among the shallow ruins of the dead city which stretched on either hand across the plain, my enemies only had to send a man up a palm tree to pick me out; after which I should be hunted till I dropped and shot down long before I could reach the hills.

For a moment I thought of doubling back, while the semi-darkness lasted, behind the marquee to seek shelter in the village; but the sound of the shots would have brought the whole place to life already. The Sheik was almost certainly in Zakri's pay and even if he had been willing to hide me nine out of ten of his people would have been ready to betray my refuge for a few piastres.

No hope lay in that direction but, as I glanced back, I noticed the dark bulk of a motor-cruiser close into the river bank where it shelved up to the marquee. It was evidently that in which Zakri and his thugs had arrived ten minutes earlier; if only I could secure it I should be able to cross the Nile and reach safety on the other side. Without a second's hesitation I plunged down the steep slope towards the river and drawing my gun raced along the sandy foreshore towards the cruiser.

When I was within twenty yards of it I saw a single man standing in its stern near the wheel; he spotted me at the same instant and let out a sharp challenge. It was his life or mine so I blazed off three rounds dead at him.

With a yelp of pain he slumped down in the boat and next moment I was scrambling over the gunwale into her. He was whimpering in her bottom but there was no sound or movement from any other part of the boat. My luck was in; he was the only man they had left on watch there.

As I jerked the poor fellow to his feet fresh shouting came from the marquee up on the bank a hundred yards away. Zakri and his people had heard my shots and were scrambling down the slope to get me.

With one terrific heave I flung the wounded man over the side into the shallow water. Grabbing the controls of the boat I pushed over her power lever and turned her nose out from the bank. A shot smacked into the woodwork of the cabin amidships; another crashed through the glass of a window and sent its splinters flying all about me. I threw myself flat on the bottom boards in the stern and let her run blind for a few moments while Zakri's gunmen peppered her. As the light was still uncertain they ceased fire before I reached mid-stream and I was safe; but only for the time being.

Standing up I headed her for the opposite shore and, when I got to within twenty feet of it, I found an axe and hacked a
jagged rent in her bottom boards; then, scrambling out into the shallow water, I turned her round and pushed her off again with her engine still running. If she had not been holed by Zakri's people she certainly was now and she would sink before she ran ashore.

It gave me a vicious satisfaction to think that Zakri's evening out had cost him his fine motor-cruiser for which, I reckoned. he would not have paid much less than £1,000. But my own situation still gave me acute anxiety. We had ascertained the previous evening that the thrice-weekly train from Deir Mowas for the south left at eleven o'clock that morning. Long before that time Zakri and his party would have crossed the river in one of the native sailing-boats and so be able to catch me up at the station. Zakri was a power in the land; the station-master at this wayside halt would be only an unimportant Egyptian official. I could hope for little help from him if Zakri found me there, declared I was an escaped criminal and that it was his business to arrest me. I should be carted off into the desert and duly shot.

After a little thought I decided to take a gamble. I had no idea how far it was to the next station or halt along the line. It might be five miles, ten, or even twenty. There was no likelihood of my getting lost once I struck the railway-line; if the halt was any great distance I should miss the train and be stuck there for a couple of days but if I could get there in time I should stand a much better chance of boarding it without being caught by Zakri.

I set off inland up the track and while I was covering the first quarter of a mile I weighed up the respective merits and disadvantages of making for the halt to the north or the halt to the south of Deir Mowas.

If I turned south I should be moving in the direction in which the train was going and, therefore, gain anything from twenty to forty minutes' leeway; but, as against that, when Zakri failed to find me at Deir Mowas he would not wish to stay there. It was almost certain that he would take the train south to Assiut, as from there, even if he really wanted to go north, he would be able to get a
rapide
back to Cairo. If he and his people were on the train when I tried to board it they would certainly
see me and get out; in which case I should be caught and no better off than if I tried to catch it at Deir Mowas.

On the other hand, if I made north I should be moving against the direction of the train and considerable lessen my chance of catching it; but at least I should be able to board it without being seen by my enemies.

In consequence, I turned up a track through the cotton-fields that led north-westward. By this time the sun was rising and in beauty the scene rivalled the sunsets of the previous days. The whole of the east bank of the river was bathed in gold and salmon-pink as though the desert where Oonas and I had lingered the previous afternoon were the site of some gigantic conflagration; but I had little time to give to contemplating such glories of nature and, pushing on, reached the railway-line after half-an-hour's hard going.

Once the sun was up I began to feel its heat and the next two hours' trudge was a gruelling business after the exhausting and adventurous night through which I had just passed; yet by nine o'clock I had real cause for jubilation. Across the fields I spotted the white dome of a small mosque and a cluster of buildings huddled round it near the railway-line. When I reached it I discovered that the place was called Masara, and I had achieved my objective with the best part of two hours to spare.

There was no hotel but a tiny shop supplied me with a breakfast of coffee, eggs and fruit after which I sat down patiently to await the coming of the train. When it arrived I took a ticket for Assiut, which was as far as it went, and as soon as it left the station I locked myself in the lavatory.

Being a local train it was naturally a short one and it had only two coaches devoted to first and second-class compartments. The odds were that Zakri would join it at Deir Mowas so I dared not show myself until we reached Assiut; otherwise, since there were no Europeans upon it to whom I could appeal for assistance, he would haul me off the train at the next wayside halt. Fortunately the journey is no more than fifty miles but, even so, as we stopped at each halt for the best part of ten minutes it took nearly two hours.

It was only by changing lavatories twice on the way that I managed to avoid being drummed out by the conductor or
showing myself yet, when we at last pulled into Assiut, I found that the discomfort of my journey had been worth while as Zakri and his men
were
on the train. On opening the door a fraction I caught a glimpse of them and I waited patiently where I was until they had had plenty of time to pass the barrier.

There was no point now in rejoining the Nile steamer so I decided to make for Luxor at once; as the Belvilles were due there the next day but one. There remained the question of getting back my baggage but here my luck had really served me well.

I recalled the schedule of the Nile voyage. On the fourth day the steamer was due to leave Beni Mohammed in the morning and arrive at Assiut about 9 o'clock. Since Assiut is one of the principal towns in Egypt the tourists were to come ashore for a drive through the big Coptic quarter, which is a feature of the place, be taken to inspect a carpet-factory in the bazaar and then up into the hills, beyond the town, where one can get a fine view of the city and the great, white stone barrage which is the only dam between Aswan and Cairo. That meant they would be ashore for several hours and, as far as I could remember, the ship was not due to sail again until about tea-time. All I had to do was to drive down to the quayside and collect my things; afterwards I should just have time to catch the one good train of the day from Cairo which left Assiut for Luxor at a little before three.

The ship's passengers were all on shore so I escaped their curious glances and any impertinent enquiries as to what had happened to Oonas and myself the night before; but I should have liked to give the Purser a good dressing-down for having left without sending Mahmoud to look for us and I had no opportunity to do so as he was also ashore, buying supplies.

Perhaps that was just as well as I soon learnt that I should only have looked a fool if I had tried. My steward gave it away that Oonas had told the Purser before she left the ship that we intended to spend the night as the guests of the local Sheik; after which we meant to rejoin the ship at Assiut. There was obviously no reply to that and it explained everything; the maid being put off with all Oonas' baggage and the reason they had not troubled to look for us. The ship had left Tel-el-
Amarna at its normal time and the message from the Purser about having to get into Beni Mohammed to anchor before dark was a pure invention with which the Sheik had been primed. I packed my bags as quickly as I could and returned to the railway-station.

Zakri was not on the train so he evidently intended to return to Cairo but, in any case, I had no fears of him now, as the express was packed with Europeans and I knew he would never have dared to start anything in their presence. We got into Luxor at 8.50 and driving straight to the Winter Palace I sat down to a belated and most welcome dinner.