FullReads

“May the truth of Allah be with you, I will await you at the boat, Kingsley Bey.”

Dicky did not turn round, but, with a sharp exclamation of profanity, drew Foulik Pasha on his imbecile way.

As for Kingsley Bey, he faced a woman who, as the truth dawned upon her, stared at him in a painful silence for a moment, and then drew back to the doorway of the house as though to find sudden refuge. Kingsley’s head went round. Nothing had gone according to his anticipations. Foulik Pasha had upset things.

“Now you know–I wished to tell you myself,” he said.

She answered at once, quietly, coldly, and with an even formal voice: “I did not know your name was Kingsley.”

“It was my grandmother’s name.”

“I had forgotten–that is of no consequence, however; but–” she stopped.

“You realise that I am–“

“Yes, of course, Kingsley Bey–I quite understand. I thought you Lord Selden, an English gentleman. You are–” she made an impatient gesture–“well, you are English still!”

He was hit hard. The suggestion of her voice was difficult to bear.

“I am not so ungentlemanly as you think. I meant to tell you–almost at once. I thought that as an old friend I might wait a moment or two. The conversation got involved, and it grew harder every minute. Then Foulik Pasha came-and now….”

She showed no signs of relenting. “It was taking advantage of an old-acquaintance. Against your evil influence here I have been working for years, while you have grown rich out of the slavery I detest. You will pardon my plain speaking, but this is not London, and one has had to learn new ways in this life here. I do not care for the acquaintance of slave-drivers, I have no wish to offer them hospitality. The world is large and it belongs to other people, and one has to endure much when one walks abroad; but this house is my own place, a little spot all my own, and I cherish it. There are those who come to the back door, and they are fed and clothed and sent away by the hand of charity; there are those who come to the front door, and I welcome them gladly–all that I have is theirs; there are those who come to a side door, when no one sees, and take me unawares, and of them I am afraid, their presence I resent. My doors are not open to slave-drivers.”

“What is the difference between the letter from the slave-driver’s hand and the slave-driver himself?”

She started and flushed deeply. She took the letter slowly from her pocket and laid it on the table.

“I thought it a letter from a man who was openly doing wrong, and who repented a little of his wrongdoing. I thought it a letter from a stranger, from an Englishman who, perhaps, had not had such advantages of birth and education as came to you.”

“Yet you had a good opinion of the letter. There seemed no want of education and all that there–won’t you be reasonable, and let me explain? Give me half a chance.”

“I do not see that explanation can mend anything. The men you sent me to free: that was a-well, call it a manoeuvre, to achieve what, I cannot tell. Is it not so? The men are not free. Is it not so?”

“I am afraid they are not free,” he answered, smiling in spite of himself.

“Your coming here was a manoeuvre also–for what purpose I do not know. Yet it was a manoeuvre, and I am–or was to be–the victim of the plot.” She smiled scornfully. “I trust you may yet be the victim of your own conduct.”

“In more ways than one, maybe. Don’t you think, now that the tables are turned, that you might have mercy on ‘a prisoner and a captive’?”

She looked at him inquiringly, then glanced towards the shore where Dicky stood talking with Foulik Pasha. Her eyes came back slowly and again asked a question. All at once intelligence flashed into them.