Trade Wind (40 page)

Swept onward by the hurrying crowd of women she soon lost her bearings and all count of how many turnings they had taken. The houses began to thin out and there were more trees, and then at last the open country stretched before them, grey in the bright starlight, and throwing aside all restraint they began to run towards a distant mass of trees that loomed up darkly against the night sky. As they neared it they slowed to a walk and stopped, sobbing for breath, to veil their faces from the sight of strange men as half-a-dozen shadowy figures moved out from among the trees to meet them. One of these coughed in an artificial manner that suggested a signal, and a man’s voice called softly: “Is it you, Highness?”

“It is I,” replied Bargash breathlessly.

“
Allah be praised!
”

The fervent exclamation made Hero jump, for it was not a single voice that spoke, but a chorus. Somehow she had not expected that there would be so many men. She had imagined there would be two or three, and the fact that there were more than two dozen gave her a sudden feeling of disquiet. Could
all
these men be escaping on the same ship that night? She did not have time to ponder the question, however, for there were horses waiting in the shadows and this time there were no arguments and no delays. The Heir-Apparent flung off his
schele
, and with barely a word of farewell, took his young brother by the hand and vanished into the darkness. And a moment or two later the jingle of harness and the thud of hooves on dry ground told her that the whole cavalcade had mounted and were riding swiftly away into the night.

The women stood huddled together; waiting, speechless and exhausted, until the last sounds faded into silence; and when they could hear nothing more they turned tiredly to face the return journey across the fields and the open country to the dark, deserted streets of the sleeping city.

The moon was up by the time they reached Beit-el-Tani, and Hero was limping badly as the result of losing one of her shoes while running through stubble. But Fattûma was waiting for her in the hall and they had reached home safely, to find Cressy still awake and in a state of agitation that reminded Hero all too vividly of the scene she had recently witnessed in Méjé’s room.

“I thought you were never coming!” shuddered Cressy. “I’ve been down at least ten times to see that no one had shut the door, and I thought you must all have been caught or shot or What have you been doing to be so late? Has the Prince escaped? Is he safe? Is everything all right? What
happened
?”

“Everything!” said Hero briefly, collapsing onto her bed. “Yes, he’s safe, and everything’s all right. It went off beautifully in spite of the silly way he behaved; you wouldn’t believe how tiresome he was! It should be days and days before anyone finds out he isn’t in the house, and by the time they do he’ll be halfway to Arabia or Persia, or wherever he’s going.”

“Oh,” said Cressy, suddenly deflated. “Then—then it’s all over.”

“Yes. They had horses, so they’re probably safely on board some ship by now.”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant…everything else. The Prince will never be Sultan now, and everything will be as bad as before and never get any better.”

Hero stood up, wincing, and began to remove her dress. She said thoughtfully: “I’m not so sure about that. You know, Cressy, we may have been wrong about the Prince. After all, a great deal of what we know about him is only what his sisters have told us. And one can see why they all dote on him, for he is exactly the type of dashing, dare-devil younger brother that sisters would spoil and adore—particularly Eastern sisters! But though I admit that I thought it an excellent idea to have him as Sultan instead of Majid—and I still think he would make a better one—anyone who could behave so…so downright
ridiculously
as that man did tonight cannot be held to have a great deal of common sense. He carried on like a schoolgirl in a tantrum, and I am not at all sure that he is the right person to institute reforms. So I guess it’s just as well that he’s gone and I only hope he reaches the ship in safety. Goodness, am I tired! I feel as though I could sleep for a week. Good night, honey.”

She crawled thankfully between the sheets, conscious of having done her duty and happily unaware that the Heir-Apparent and his entourage had safely reached not a ship, but
Marseilles
, and that his escape had not, as she so confidently supposed, gone undetected. For a Baluchi soldier who had stood at the gate and watched the women pass out had recognized, in one brief moment between the slipping of a fold of cloth and its hurried replacement, the face of Seyyid Bargash-bin-Saïd, half-brother and Heir-Apparent to His Highness the Sultan.

The Baluchi had not raised an immediate alarm, since he, like Hero Hollis, had believed himself to be witnessing the escape of a man whose sole intention was to fly the country. And having served for several years under the Seyyid’s father, his loyalty and respect for the dead Lion of Oman had been strong enough to persuade hun to hold his tongue and give his late Sultan’s son a chance to reach safety. But morning had brought the country-folk flocking into the city with their loads of grain and fruit and vegetables for the market, and they had brought with them tales of unprecedented numbers of Arabs seen hurrying towards
Marseilles
—armed and eager men on foot and on horseback, accompanied by slaves carrying swords, muskets and provisions enough for an army…

The Baluchi soldier, listening to those tales, realized that the Seyyid Bargash had not flown the country, but escaped to lead an armed rebellion, and he had hurried to the Palace to confess what he had seen.

Two hours later a frightened eunuch scratched at Chole’s door with the news that every detail of her brother’s escape and his sisters’ part in it was known to the Sultan, and that his ministers were already meeting to decide what action must be taken: “They have sent for the British Consul,” stammered the eunuch, “and it is said that he is urging His Highness to take strong measures, and will lend guns and English sailors from a ship that is expected to arrive within a few days.”

The guards had been withdrawn from Bargash’s house, and in the Palace the Sultan, pallid with alarm and indignation, poured his troubles into the unsympathetic ear of Colonel George Edwards, and received in return the same comments and advice that his ministers and councillors had already given him.

“I have repeatedly warned your Highness,” said Colonel Edwards stiffly, “that your leniency in the matter of your brother has been sadly misplaced. But as you have so far chosen to ignore my warnings, you cannot now expect me to express astonishment at what has occurred. It was only to be expected, and I am not in the least surprised.”

“You knew of this plot, then?” demanded Majid indignantly.

“As much as your Highness knew. There has never been over-much secrecy about your brother’s proceedings; or, for that matter, his intentions. I am well aware that your ministers have been pressing you to take action against him for months past, and I can only join them in urging you to lose no further time about it, since every hour that you waste is to his advantage. He is obviously counting upon outside support, either from Muscat and Oman or—or from some European nation. And though at the moment you can muster considerably more men and armaments than he can boast of, if you allow him to entrench himself in a strong position and remain there unmolested, collecting more supporters daily with promises of pay and the prospect of plunder, and waiting until even stronger reinforcements arrive from outside the Island, your throne is lost. Your Highness must act at once.”

It was always easier to advise Majid to take action than to get him to the point of acting. But the news that his brother had forced the slaves on the plantations bordering on
Marseilles
to join him, and had set them to cutting down the coconut groves to build a stockade about the house and destroying the clove plantations so that they might not be used to cover a hostile advance, finally drove him to collect a force of five thousand men and reluctantly accompany it to Beit-el-Ras, a royal estate on the coast some eight miles from the city.

Bargash’s undisciplined supporters, undeterred by this move, embarked on an orgy of looting and destruction, and Colonel Edwards sent off a dhow with an urgent message requesting the immediate presence of any Royal Navy vessel that might chance to be in the vicinity. And as panic spread through the undefended city. Hero Hollis realized with horror that this ugly and terrifying situation was something that she herself had helped to bring about.

19

Lieutenant Daniel Larrimore, having tailed the
Virago
as far as Ras Asuad and then lost her, turned back to patrol the narrow waters that separated the islands of Pemba and Zanzibar from the Sultan’s mainland territories. The
Virago
, he argued, was bound to return that way, and if Captain Frost supposed the
Daffodil
to be lurking for him somewhere north of Mogadishu, so much the better.

It had been close on sunrise when the dhow sighted them, and full daylight by the time she ranged alongside and sent over a messenger carrying a single sheet of paper, stamped with the Consular seal and bearing Colonel Edwards’s urgent request for immediate assistance. The messenger reported that another naval vessel, H.M.S.
Assaye
, had already been contacted and should by now have reached the Island, but added that the situation being serious, he thought that any reinforcements would be welcomed: a view with which the Lieutenant found himself in so much agreement that he instantly abandoned any further ideas of waylaying the
Virago
, and gave orders for the
Daffodil
to make all speed for Zanzibar.

Dan was well aware what the motley crew of freed slaves, petty criminals and el Harth tribesmen who composed the bulk of the Heir-Apparent’s forces would be capable of once they got out of hand, and his heart contracted with fear at the thought of Cressy in a town that might even now be given over to riot and rape at the hands of a murderous, greed-crazed mob of looters, who would think nothing of burning it to the ground. It was a situation that he could hardly bear to contemplate, and he cracked on more sail and yelled down the hatchway for more steam—and cursed Rory Frost with more than ordinary virulence, because it was entirely on his account that the
Daffodil
had been three hundred miles from Zanzibar on the night of the Heir-Apparent’s escape.

The sloop made harbour shortly before midnight, and Dan, who had been visualizing the city in flames, was unspeakably relieved to find it looking much as usual, with the waterfront silent and the few men there asleep. But despite the lateness of the hour he had gone immediately to the British Consulate to report his arrival, and had found Colonel Edwards awake and engaged in writing an acidulated dispatch to the Foreign Office.

“Glad to see you, Dan,” said the Colonel, and looked it. “Did you fetch in by chance, or did you get my message? I sent Jahia off to see if he could make contact with any Navy ship in these waters.”

“He sighted us early this morning, sir, and we got here as soon as we could. I thought I might have some difficulty in getting to your house, so I brought a couple of bluejackets with me. Is the situation really bad, sir? The town seems quiet enough.”

“The town,” said Colonel Edwards austerely, “is in a state of anarchy and the situation is thoroughly unpleasant to say the least of it. And as if that were not enough. Monsieur Rene Dubail called on me today to inform me that he had heard from a reliable source that I had been urging the Sultan to launch an attack on his brother’s forces and proposed to offer him aid in the form of guns and men from the
Assaye
, He wished to know if this was true, and upon my replying that for once his information was entirely accurate, he had the effrontery to object to what he was pleased to call my ‘unwarrantable interference in a domestic matter that was the sole concern of the Sultan’s Government and subjects, and nothing whatever to do with the British Crown.’”

“Good God!” said Lieutenant Larrimore, scandalized. “What can he be thinking of?”

“You may well ask. He further informed me that if I persisted in my efforts to promote civil war on behalf of a man who had no legal right to the throne—by which he meant the Sultan—it would leave him no alternative but to place the Heir-Apparent under the protection of his own Government.”

“He must be mad,” announced the Lieutenant, taking the most charitable view: “The heat, I expect.”

“Nothing of the sort. This isn’t the first time I’ve come up against him. Though it is the first occasion on which I have permitted myself the luxury of losing my temper. I asked him how he could even contemplate offering his country’s protection to the rebel subject of a ruling monarch, and pointed out that the Sultan had himself asked for my advice and assistance, and that he had every right to do so if he wished, since he was as much an independent sovereign as Louis Napoleon. Monsieur Dubail said the comparison was an insult, so I told him that he might call it what he liked, but it was still the truth. He did not like it at all, and the whole thing was most unfortunate: deplorable! ‘
Legal right
’ indeed! It is just as well that this is not a matter that our respective countries would ever consider going to war over.”

The Lieutenant, whose mind had been occupied with other things of late, frowned and said: “But surely, sir, there was never any question of Bargash being the rightful heir?”

“Oh, he was referring to the elder brother, Thuwani, whom Bargash once pretended to be acting for. No question of that now, however. Bargash is playing this hand for himself and no one else. But I must not keep you. You will be wanting to get back to your ship to get some sleep. About tomorrow…”

Dan received his instructions and left; heroically resisting an impulse to make a detour that would take him past the American Consulate, and wondering when, if ever, he was going to be forgiven for having criticized Cressy’s too frequent visits to Beit-el-Tani. It had been a mistake to do so, and he had paid for it Yet how could he possibly have held his tongue? Cressy was so innocent and trusting—so sure that she was helping to further the cause of friendship and understanding between East and West He could not have stood aside and kept silent while she became involved in the ugly web of plotting and conspiracy that was being woven by Bargash and his friends. But his well-meant warning had merely resulted in a quarrel that was making it very difficult for him to present himself at her house again. Dan’s heart and his spirits sank at the thought, and he could almost wish that he had returned to find Zanzibar in flames so that he could have had the privilege of rescuing her from a burning building, or saving her single-handed from a rioting mob.