The Argosy, March 1907 — page 54: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

¥. a Cs — ax nal - ae “se a ant ae ee 7 a *“? Vissi, eek eA ad sf Sts Wh dears & ; : ‘““I—I know you,” she faltered, lame- ly enough; ‘“ but who are you?” Then, on the moment, recoverjag her- self, she went on: | e Thank you a thousand times! had not been for. you : She stopped with a little involuntary shudder at memory of the loathsome face that had been so close to her own. ‘Then, again raising her eyes to the stranger’s, she went on: 3 ‘“T have met you somewhere—some time. Haven't [?” “T think not,” he replied, with a half- smile that began and ended in the depths of his strange blue eyes, “for I could hardly have failed to recall you.” There was a subtle compliment, an Old-World courtesy, in his tone that went to the girl’s heart. “Yet I knew your face the moment I saw you,” she insisted. “ Could I have met you in America or = “No. I have never had the good for- tune to visit your country, though some of the pleasantest people I have met are Americans. But,” he added, his tone changing to one of concern, “ did those brutes hurt you in any way? I am thankful I arrived when I did.” “No,” she answered, the shock and horror of the past scene now returning with double vividness, “but I owe my safety to you. 1 shall never forget what you did for me.’ Ina few words she explained her: pres- ence in so untoward a place, noting, as she did so, that he had refrained from questioning her on the subject, although the sight of an American girl in the Cairo Fishmarket after nightfall must have seemed to him a hopeless puzzle. He heard her through in silence; then, laying his hand on her donkey’s bridle, he said: “We are less than half a mile from Shepheard’s, though the streets are un- safe by night for a woman—or for a man, for that matter. Come, if you are strong enough to ride so far, I will be your guide.”’ ‘You say these streets are unsafe by night,” she commented, as they threaded their way through the network of ill- smelling alleys, “yet you were here alone.” ‘No one in Egypt would molest me,”’ If it ‘THE ARGOSY. he responded, a sort of fond pride in his | voice. “ These people are my friends— my children.” “ But T’ve heard there is> only one European whom these crafty, suspicious Egyptians really trust,” pursued Madge, and = that" 35 ‘Chinese’ Gordon, the——”’ She checked herself with an exclama- tion of wondering delight. Now she re- called the reason of the stranger’s famil- iar aspect; why she had entertained that haunting idea of having met and known him. The features that she had looked on in the torch-flare of the Fishmarket were those of the man whose pictures just then adorned the shop-windows and illus- trated-magazine pages of a _ thoysand cities. “ Yes,” he said amusedly, reading her unspoken thought, “I am Gordon.” Meantime, in the upper room of a khan, just off the Fishmarket, sat three men. One was Abou Saoud; the second, a brown-faced man in the gorgeous blue- and-gold dress of a dragoman; the third, a gigantic negro whose solitary garment was a soiled white burnoose, and whose hair was piled in mattress-like tufts high above his head. Abou Saoud’s face bespoke utter and cowardly despair. He was rocking his fat body to and fro, and moaning. “ Ruined!” he wailed. “The whole Heaven-sent plan wrecked! It is hope- less now; and so you may tell your mas- ter, oh, Farragh.” The black man grunted, eying his shrinking ally with contempt. “The gray jackals of the hills must have eaten your heart in babyhood, Abou Saoud,”’ sneered he, ‘‘ and left the heart of one of their whelps in its place. What is this Gordon Pasha that his coming. should swerve the Mohammed-blessed plans of my master? What is he that all you Egyptians cringe at his very name? ”’ ‘What is he?” squealed Abou, in con- tempt at such ignorance. “ He is the man whose life is charmed, that he may not be slain; the fool to whom boundless wealth has a thousand times been offered, and who has refused it because, for- comic 700 ‘SCOlr : o : -